The Long Game

AI Hype and Opportunity, Building Consumer Experiences into a B2B Product, and How Incentive Systems Inform Everything with Jon Reilly, Co-Founder & COO of Akkio

Episode Summary

In this podcast episode, we are joined by Jonathon Reilly, the co-founder and COO of Akkio, where he focuses on driving the company’s mission of making it incredibly easy for people who work with data to leverage AI.

Episode Notes

In this podcast episode, we are joined by Jonathon Reilly, the co-founder and COO of Akkio, who focuses on driving the company’s mission of making it incredibly easy for people who work with data to leverage AI.

Jon discussed the importance of user experience design in building a successful product. He explained that his motivation for creating Akkio came from his frustration with the difficulty of extracting value from data in various businesses. To ensure that Akkio is a user-friendly tool, Jon and his team strive to create a B2C quality experience in a B2B application.

He emphasizes the importance of setting ambitious goals and thinking big when starting a company. Jon also discusses the challenges of natural language processing as well as the impact of AI on businesses. He shares his unconventional opinions on risk and experience in business and offers valuable advice for new parents.

Overall, this episode is packed with valuable insights and advice for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, AI, and user experience design. So, if you want to learn more about Jon's journey and his thoughts on these topics, be sure to tune in to this episode.

Topics

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Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify), Ryan Law (Animalz), Dan Shure (Evolving SEO), Kaleigh Moore (freelancer), Eric Siu (Clickflow), Peep Laja (CXL), Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper), Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo), Tim Soulo (Ahrefs), Ryan McReady (Reforge), and many more.

Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from:

Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO)

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Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social)

Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath)

Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency:

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Connect with Omniscient Digital on social:

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Linkedin: Be Omniscient

Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

Episode Transcription

Key Takeaways

[00:04:54]  Learning at a Small Startup 

Jon talks about his experience at a small startup and how it helped him learn about product management and direction.

[00:10:10]  The excitement of growth 

Jon discusses the excitement of growth and how it can become less exciting as a company becomes more stable and operational.

[00:11:27]  Challenging goals 

Jon talks about the importance of setting challenging goals and how it can help a team achieve more than they thought they could.

[00:15:45]  Building and Adoption of machine learning models 

Jon explains how Acio helps users build machine learning models to predict future outcomes and deploy real-time models for in-process decision-making he also talks about the early adoption of machine learning in most companies and how Akkio targets the group of people who are willing to try a new tool.

[00:18:14]  Concerns about using AI tools

Jon addresses the two big concerns people have when using AI tools: the tool is going to lie or hallucinate something, and people are worried about leaking their business-specific information to some of these tools.

[00:24:01]  Benefits of Large Language Models

The benefits of large language models in improving user experience and the potential for chat interfaces to replace knowledge documents.

[00:29:41]  High Bar for Quality

Jon emphasizes the importance of having a high bar for quality in product design and paying attention to pain points and complexity.

[00:33:01]  Importance of Customer Support

Jon explains why he does customer support himself and how it helps him understand where users are getting stuck and struggling.

[00:36:52]  Rapid Pace of Innovation and Content 

Jon shares how playing Fortnite taught him to expect a rapid pace of innovation and content, but also to understand that there may be problems that need to be fixed quickly.

 [00:46:33] Ease of Use and Machine Learning 

Jon discusses how ease of use is the key to unlocking more people using machine learning tools and how designing a tool to be self-serve is a different value proposition than designing enterprise software.

 [00:49:56]  Incentive Structures

Jon discusses how incentive structures can affect the behavior of sales and marketing teams and how aligning marketing with revenue generation is important.

[00:59:23 - 01:00:17] Working at a Startup vs. Large Business

Jon shares his opinion that working at a startup is not necessarily riskier than working at a large business and that startups offer more opportunities for learning and career growth.

[01:00:17 - 01:01:54] Hiring for Agency 

Jon talks about the importance of hiring for an agency, or the ability to take ownership of a problem and figure it out, over hiring for the experience.

[01:03:51]  Parenting and Work-Life Balance 

Jon talks about the challenges of having two kids and building a startup, and how COVID-19 and remote work have made it a little easier.