Mastering Product-Market Fit and AI Innovation
Welcome back to the Be Helpful Podcast! Join host Gboyega Adebayo for a captivating discussion with Jarie Bolander, author and advocate for entrepreneurship. Delve into the intricacies of product-market fit and the fascinating world of artificial intelligence (AI). Learn how AI enhances creativity, storytelling, and innovation, transforming entrepreneurial landscapes. Explore the concept of "the best story wins" and gain firsthand insights into the potential of AI to optimize creative endeavors.
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FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
INTERVIEW WITH JARIE BOLANDER
Gboyega Adebayo: yeah, no, that's, they're, they're very powerful questions and even, again, you learn by these conversations, you learn from each other, even some of the surveys that we've taken are sent out for existing users or early users of Yensil. I wish we had included that question, you know, I wish we had, I wish we had.
Gboyega Adebayo: Left free form or free text response questions, because the analytical person in me is just like, Oh, no, we need to give them a range so that I can analyze it on the back end. And I could put it. Well, no, let them use their own words, because reading the responses and then capturing the keywords is actually going to feed into.
Gboyega Adebayo: the marketing language that we need to use to get more people like them.
Gboyega Adebayo: So it's, it's, it's actually really. It's a really smart approach to
Jarie Bolander: I mean,
Gboyega Adebayo: find that product market.
Jarie Bolander: yeah, and, and Wicha, G P T and uh, and AI analyzing those reams of, of text is like that.
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: We actually, funny, we actually Ravi's the founder right
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: week. I went to his office and we worked on this thing and we're like, Hey, let's see if the, the chat G P T plugin Google Sheets. That's where use Typeform and then see if it works. And we spent a good part of like 45 minutes just going through, okay, summarize these. And it's like, just looked at them. I said, this has saved us like 10 hours. and, and, and the in. So this is the thing though, which is fascinating, right?
Jarie Bolander: So it's, it's, of course, it's it's interpretation of what the data means,
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: you could see trends, then you can validate it, and then you can like, dig in like, oh, interesting. Let's, and, and we used to do this all by hand, we sort of know it. It's, it's effective. every company that I start from now on , definitely I'm gonna do this no matter what.
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. It's, it's, what's so cool, I mean, to the AI point. I definitely have heard this somewhere, but I believe it to be 100% true. Any skill, any domain, any area, at the, at the level of expertise where you're calling yourself an expert, you are now operating in an art form. Everything below, is rule based and can be commoditized.
Gboyega Adebayo: And that's where I think AI does a phenomenal job. The 80% of the stuff you have to do to be an accountant or whatever it may be, that's rule based. AI is going to probably figure that out and make it better. But if you're a really good accountant, you're already playing in that top 20%. And now you, now you have a robot that's going to do all the grunt work for you and you can innovate and kind of come up with new things.
Gboyega Adebayo: And so, um, I'm excited for the future and, and, you know, I'm constantly looking for ways to use AI to kind of fill in that 80% of what.
Gboyega Adebayo: you know, this role doesn't have or what I need this role to do so that I can start getting creative on the top end. So I think that's, that's awesome.
Jarie Bolander: Yeah, I, I, you're spot on. I mean, oh wow. I'm like because that was, because, I mean, that's my philosophy too. It, it, it's,
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: you know, so, it's such a good, so people, it's funny because, you know, as a writer, we're one of the were one of the creative arts where, Frameworks let's formulaic and you know, everyone's all wants to be a unique snowflake.
Jarie Bolander: Right. Okay, I get But what I've found studying, writing and storytelling to your point, 80% of it frameworks, genres, conventions, obligatory scenes, you know, things that are like, been around the test of time storytelling. Most stories are a three act story, beginning, middle, end. I mean, it's not like, oh, I'm reinventing.
Jarie Bolander: Like some people will do that. But this is the thing that's so powerful and I'm so glad you brought this up. This whole 80 20 thing, What's, what's just fascinating, beyond fascinating is the fact that can, you can get. That 80% done faster by studying story understanding like or anything so that you have more time for
Gboyega Adebayo: Correct.
Jarie Bolander: And don't know I just like, I don't wanna spend all my time researching the, I mean, I was on this like today, like was on chat G P T doing something. I'm like, gosh, I really need to research something or . I need to scrape the web. I don't remember what it was, but I'm like, oh, I'll just ask it to do it.
Jarie Bolander: And I'm like, oh, wow. That just saved me five hours. And, and it's not, it's not that, it's not value added. I think that's the thing that's like the, the thing, I don't want to, you know, kapo or, or disparage. the fact that it's not value added for me. Like, I, I should not be right. I shouldn't be spending my time doing this because,
Gboyega Adebayo: Correct.
Jarie Bolander: I am, you know, I'm the 20% I need to spend my time on the 20%.
Jarie Bolander: So, you know, I, even with my writing and all that sort of stuff, how powerful that is really like, rely on frameworks and rely on certain things that are just like, yeah, this is the way it goes. Why would I, why would I not make it
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: You know,
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. I do. There's sorry. Go ahead.
Jarie Bolander: like, it seems silly , you know.
Gboyega Adebayo: It really does. And I think that, um, one of the things that I don't know if I'll keep this in or not. I might whatever, but we're talking, one of the things that we were talking about with yes. So, as I said, If you had to ask me, what's the problem that you're solving in 10 years, I would say I want to create the world's first like creator economy slash future of work, fractional workforce.
Gboyega Adebayo: And I was like, okay, well, what do you mean? How does that work? I was like, well, we're going to have a bunch of knowledge professionals that are going to be out of work. But they know a lot of stuff that a lot of other people don't know, and I is going to be giving them answers that they don't know whether it's right or not.
Gboyega Adebayo: So there's a space where if I'm a new business owner, a small business owner, I don't have the money to hire a project manager, a lawyer, an accountant and all of these different roles. And I want to leverage a I, we could potentially be their back office staff powered by a I, but have an army of knowledge professionals that could be like a fractional workforce that says, yeah, that makes sense.
Gboyega Adebayo: I know.
Gboyega Adebayo: your business. That makes sense. This works have a I populate a. a project plan for you and then like help you execute it with a real project manager. Like, I think that there's a world where you can take the displaced knowledge professionals and still make them useful in this new world. And that's kind of what I'm ruminating on.
Gboyega Adebayo: It's like, yes, like we can build. A marketplace that allows you to sell your notion templates. Yes. But ultimately I want to build a database of expertise and a network of experts that can help everyday entrepreneurs have a back office function that they would never be able to have before. Like that's where I'm trying to go with it
Jarie Bolander: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think this whole generative personal computer did for productivity will there be some people that are left behind? Of course, I'm not, you know, pragmatic, But I think the fundamentals are always gonna be true Fundamental number one is you need to understand how to need to know In order to know the inputs to the system, you need to know the desired And you need to know the frameworks and the methodologies and the strategy to drive the, I mean, a computer access to the internet that just sits there is not useful.
Jarie Bolander: It's the person that's operating the machine. Um, while generative AI is like pretty game changing and does some fiction. There's someone that still has to drive the machine. There's someone that still has to like figure out if the output's, like, this is what I want.
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: And in order to be really good at that, you gotta know what you're doing. I mean, it's the same thing of why teach mathematics to kids. There's calculators. Yeah. But like, you gotta know if the calculators like, you know, there's, this was this great comic. It's back in the day. Um, I think, I don't remember, maybe it was a Dilbert.
Jarie Bolander: No, it wasn't a Dilbert comic. It was some other And it was said something like, um, to, you know, if you really want to foul things up, use a computer , because the, the thing at scale is like you put in some garbage in scale, this thing will, you know,
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. Give you beautiful garbage. Yeah. beautiful garbage.
Gboyega Adebayo: out.
Jarie Bolander: And, and I think that's what's missing in the debate, in the discussion. 'cause when I look at this generative AI stuff, I'm just like, yeah, this is a great another tool. Everyone's like, oh my God, it's gonna replace all these marketers and . This and that, and screenwriters. I go, yeah, no, I don't think so. I think it's just a re-adapt, you know, you're gonna have to use it to adapt
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: and just Ima So just imagine everyone has access to generative AI tools.
Jarie Bolander: Okay? So what's gonna happen? The standard and the bar for creativity is gonna go up. down, right? Okay. Now everyone that's the bar, you as to your point, the 80 20 rule, you have to be the 20% that's above the bar. That's, that's your job. And so you wanna stay relevant, be the 20%.
Gboyega Adebayo: Or, or pivot to a place where you can be the 20%.
Jarie Bolander: Yeah. Yeah,
Gboyega Adebayo: And, and, and in many places, in many ways, it's probably better for you, right? I know way too many attorneys. That hate law.
Jarie Bolander: I mean that's the other, what, what's an attorney? rule based . mean, I know 'em too. I'm like accountant, like basic accounting. Like that's why, you know, QuickBooks and all these like accounting software, are the rules to your point.
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah,
Jarie Bolander: 20% of the really good accountants are like really good.
Jarie Bolander: You need them, but, need someone,
Gboyega Adebayo: it's one of the things that I, on the topic of gender of AI, um, and, and because you're an author, I would like to explore your feelings around storytelling in the world of gender AI, right? Um, kind of. You've gone through not only, you know, writing a book, but then being an entrepreneur and seeing how storytelling plays in these two different fields.
Gboyega Adebayo: How do you see the next evolution of storytelling happening? Especially given the fact that AI is handling the 80%.
Jarie Bolander: Yeah. Um, I've been, I've experiment, been experimenting with this and I continue it. 'cause I'm just fascinated. I love
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: I'm a, geek at heart that way. , Uh, well, I mean it at its level today, it's basically high school, senior level you know, it, it's okay.
Jarie Bolander: It's like, you know, if you want to generate like a seven tips, blah, blah, blah, blog post, a listicle, it's pretty good, but it's, it's uninspired to be honest. Will it be c e o s e o? Sorry. S e o, rich and yeah, uninspired. You know, it's really good at very vanilla standard formulaic, step-by-step how to.
Jarie Bolander: Pretty good. And, and, and, and you can use it as an, a nice outline to expand. And, and the way I use it is for generating
Gboyega Adebayo: Hehehe
Jarie Bolander: a lot of the times when I'm writing stuff, it's like, ah, what is that thing? I don't remember where it is. And I like, have to search the internet. And the I use it to say like, Hey, I got this idea. How, how would I go about it? And then it will give me ideas. And that's just fantastic. Like, it's really good at . You past the writer's block of, I'm just out of ideas or I just don't know like how I should research this or what, what is the best one I can give you?
Jarie Bolander: 'cause I'm working on it right now, is I'm working on a class or a course called, uh, mastering B two B storytelling,
Gboyega Adebayo: Mmhmm.
Jarie Bolander: I'm taking, I'm actually taking a class on it. And one of the ways that we're, running the class, or he's running the class, is generative AI prompts. To help with the brainstorming know, writing the whole, not the whole thing, but how am I supposed to frame this? And in the context of, and this is why it's so powerful, in the context of I have this idea, I'm an expert in this, I've written books on this. Can you tell me the types of people that would be interested in this? Now I know this in my, kind of my, my heart, right?
Jarie Bolander: Sales and marketing professionals, content, you know, content managers, demand gen, whatever. I, I know that they're gonna, but I don't know, did I miss something? What are they worried about now? I mean, it, it's a lot of research so you can use it to say, oh, huh, interesting. Content marketers, managers, demand gen.
Jarie Bolander: know, sales SDRs are interested in storytelling, and then you say, Hey, well then what are some of the things that they may be interested in given what you know about? And oh, they want short form content. They wanna understand how to align to values. I mean, all, oh, really good research, right? then you think, oh, well, okay, this is really valuable because that would've taken me hours upon hours and I probably would've missed something.
Jarie Bolander: Now the question is, how do I use that information? To generate the class, given that I've written story driven outreach for how to do cold emails, story driven decks on how presentations. written tons of books on all this stuff. I blog about it, all that, like I have my knowledge base, now I'm crafting to the market, which is so powerful.
Jarie Bolander: I mean, how often are you, like, what's the persona want? What's the ideal customer profile? It's like that's a lot of work that now gets condensed into . Now I can focus on the 20%. Okay. Now what I, if you look at some of the stuff it generates, it's like, I wouldn't say that that's cheesy that's stupid, and you're like, but ah, that one, right.
Jarie Bolander: There's a good point. .
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: You know, so I think when it comes to
Jarie Bolander: storytelling and just using generative ai, the thing that's powerful about The research and the idea ideation to get you to the point where you can finish your
Jarie Bolander: I, I, I struggle to see how it's going to, you know, like you can really go do very good storytelling with generative ai because it's not about like good storytelling and just creativity is like, you have to unlock it in your
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: And the definition of creativity is like building something from nothing and it's looking at what's already exists. So you're like, well, okay, you need another action movie with Arnold Schwartzenegger as a aging fa, you know, and his fa his daughter's in the CIA too, and he doesn't know it. Okay. Then you get Fubar.
Jarie Bolander: Did, did I write that? Probably not, but you know what I mean. Like it's,
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: you know, the writers strike right now. Hollywood Rider Strike. One of the things that they're They, they have a legitimate gripe about, among other things studios want to use generative AI to do first drafts of scripts, and then they want to be like, fix it.
Jarie Bolander: And so in a rewrite of a script less than a original script. can see you're a writer, your job's to create stuff. This machine now is taking the bulk of your. And you're like, fix the mess. And thanks.
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: You know what I mean? It's like, this doesn't seem fair. So
Gboyega Adebayo: Right.
Jarie Bolander: yeah, I mean,
Jarie Bolander: since creativity is basically some aspect, creating something from nothing, past is important to that, the future . Is in your head, until it can predict, doubtful,
Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. It seems like, um, I use it every day for myriad of things. And one of my favorite things to do is if I need to write something or I need to think through ad copy or something that I need to do for the business, I'll say, give me, 10 ways of saying this thing and I'll give me all those things. I'll read them and I'm like, okay, I like the first three words here.
Gboyega Adebayo: I like that phrasing. Ooh, I hadn't even thought about that word. And then I create kind of what I ultimately use. But like you said, it's just a fantastic brainstorming buddy, um, to kind of get you to start working through it.
Jarie Bolander: Yeah. a brave new world, man. . It's a brave new world.
Gboyega Adebayo: Cool. All right. Well, I want to, um, do you need to jump right and jump right now?
Jarie Bolander: In like, yeah, a minute
Gboyega Adebayo: Oh, no, it's all good. Um, I do have some concluding questions. Do you want to try to maybe do those tomorrow when we
Jarie Bolander: Yeah.
Jarie Bolander: we could do that. Let's Yeah. Sorry man. It might, the meeting at one got now got moved like, what?
Gboyega Adebayo: No, it's All good. I, I get it. So, so yeah, tomorrow we'll, um, we'll probably basically more or less conclude talking a little bit about your book, um, and then some wrap up questions.
Jarie Bolander: All right,
Gboyega Adebayo: Cool. All right, man. Have a good one.