[00:00:02] Rajan:  AI is reshaping businesses, and ignoring it could leave your industry disrupted. I'm Rajan, and this is Pivotal Clarity. We talk to those building or using AI, founders and engineers with real world experience. Our aim is just to cut through the hype and see where AI is truly making an impact. If you're a business or following tech trends, these conversations offer clearer insight than most of the press. Let's get into today's episode. Welcome to Pivotal Clarity, an AI podcast. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Erica Anderson, cofounder and chief customer officer of Storytel dot AI. At Storytel, Erica brings in the aspect of how do we bring in humane part to AI, and that is what we are gonna explore today. Before, uh, storytell, Erica was a writer, and she was helping writers become better. With AI, most people are thinking about what happens when, uh, AI is gonna replace, but that's not what, uh, Erica is focusing on. She's trying to help writers become better with AI rather than getting replaced by AI. Erica, welcome to the show.

[00:01:08] Erika:  Thanks, Raja. Really happy to be here, and I think this intersection of humane technology and AI is really rich and something that I think we should all be paying attention to.

[00:01:20] Rajan:  I think, uh, as I get started, I wanna ask you, what is your favorite AI tool? What do you use the most?

[00:01:25] Erika:  It might sound horrible. I actually use our own tool the most.

[00:01:30] Rajan:  Fantastic. And why is that your favorite tool?

[00:01:33] Erika:  Well, I think in terms of breaking down silos, speeding up my own productivity, editing my own writing. As a writer, I find that AI is just this incredible constructive editorial tool. And at the end, the end result is still something I've written. It's it's my idea. It's my IP. And just like you can have a editor at a book publishing company or a ghostwriter, at the end of the day, it's still your work. And so that's something I use all the time, but, you know, for follow-up calls or follow-up emails after a call with a customer, uh, to understand the pain points in our product, you know, across all our customer calls. And, uh, even preparing for this podcast, I just dropped all of the questions in our product to get its take as well. You know? It's not replacing my thought, but it is a partner and a Kickstarter.

[00:02:29] Rajan:  So how would you explain storyteller to someone who's not being familiar about storyteller?

[00:02:34] Erika:  The way I speak to it is that we help tell the stories of your unstructured data. You have just a mountain of of unstructured data at any company, you know, meeting notes, videos, audio, etcetera. That's about 80% of what's, you know, in any company. 80% of the data is unstructured. And before generative AI, it's like a lump of coal. You know, you just can't get anything from it. It's like, what's more valuable than a meeting? And yet, usually, there's this total falloff. Like, wait, what are the action items? Where do we go from here? It's such expensive precious time, especially when it's with a customer. And so using our product to gain all of the value, get every thread of gold from what can just look like something that's inscrutable. How do I understand all of this at once? And, you know, teams, there's so many use cases for it. So it is more of a horizontal platform play from our end to just take everything that's stuck in these data swamps, essentially, and just get the knowledge from it, extract that knowledge in order to thought partner, create strategy, create adoption plans, create PRGs, etcetera. There's so many things you can create with it.

[00:03:57] Rajan:  So when customers, uh, pick a story tell, do they do they don't have, like, a precedence, or what are you replacing?

[00:04:04] Erika:  I think sometimes we're replacing Gong or Zoom AI or even this might sound crazy, but Microsoft Copilot as it's not that they're that they still have it, but in terms of really being being able to interact with a subset of data or with essentially, like, creating a brain of the organization, you know, through this knowledge base that you have in storytell, what I hear from our customers is they're just not able to do that in Microsoft Copilot in the same way. Maybe they're doing one off things with Copilot, but they really have this opportunity to access, like, uh, breadth and depth of knowledge with our tool.

[00:04:43] Rajan:  What's the backstory? What was the insight that led you to found that Storytel?

[00:04:48] Erika:  Well, it goes back to your introduction of where I was running a founder community and is also passionate about supporting founders and was also running a content business for founders and that, okay, every business is a content producing business. At this day and age, you have to show thought leadership, and yet where's the time to do that? And so I was running a team of writers, and it was really hard for founders to make the time to even edit or look at the content we created for them and much harder to get on a call for an interview or something like that. And so as I saw the wave of generative AI coming with the, you know, DaVinci two model back when it was, you know, OpenAI's playground, and I was also thinking about the fact that we record everything now with Otter or Zoom or what have you. We have all those meeting recordings. And so I just thought, wait a minute. I see this over here. No time to bring forward the amazing things these founders are doing in their businesses. And then all these recordings of the amazing things they're doing in their businesses. So I thought, okay, we can use generative AI to bring that to light without creating extra work. And so often marketing is making low fidelity, uh, output what the company's doing and, you know, the engineers look at that and they're like, well, that's not really what we're doing. Like, marketing doesn't actually understand what we're doing. And, um, and versus just using the meetings with the engineers to really just describe, um, with great fidelity and technical clarity what companies are creating. So it started from that standpoint of thought leadership and supporting and enhancing thought leadership and then moved into, well, if you can do it for that, what can't you use it on, essentially? Usually in

[00:06:51] Rajan:  startups, timing plays a very important role. So how do you think about the timing question for, uh, Storytel?

[00:06:57] Erika:  I agree. CEO that I really admire, Clint Sharp of Cribl says, and I think he's quoting someone else, but, you know, it's a combination of luck, timing, and brilliance in that order when you are successful. And, you know, we are pre seed. Uh, we're very early stage startups still. And I would say it was incredible to to jump into the playground and start to understand how to use generative AI before Chat2BT came out. So we got our angel funding a month or so before Chat2BT came out. So I I would say lucky in our timing.

[00:07:36] Rajan:  You've talked about something called as clean communication framework. Can you tell a little bit about that?

[00:07:41] Erika:  I am really interested in how we interact with each other. I think often in my twenties and thirties as I would interview for roles, I'd ask, well, how do you deal with conflict? And a lot of people say, like, what conflict? No such thing. You have to watch out for people who say that. So just simply having frameworks. So, like, you know, there are going to be misunderstandings. Of course, there are. That is normal. That's expected. So how do we plan for that? And I have given myself what I call, like, an informal PhD in communication, just taken so many trainings and given so many trainings. And I took everything that I learned into this umbrella framework of clean communication. So this is how we give feedback. This is how to kinda position yourself to receive feedback. Um, this is how we go about checking something out in a meeting with like, something seems off. I'm not sure what it is, and we bring that into our performance management. We bring that into our all hands, into our off sites, etcetera, so that there's not just this, I don't know, miasma of, like, what happens there when the humans, they bump into each other. Right? And those bumps, like, people can leave companies over that, and and it's not necessary. We have to to find ways to reduce the cost of conflict because it can be very, very expensive.

[00:09:09] Rajan:  Is this similar to Crucial Conversation?

[00:09:11] Erika:  I would say, yes. I've I've read that. There's difficult conversations. There's so many amazing books in this space. So I think that has a lot to do with it. I Radical Candor is an incredible resource within that. Um, and I, yeah, I just see many things, you know, fitting together in that space. The hard thing is to live it. So if it's just a book with a lot of ideas, that's nice. How do you make it actionable? You did that with frameworks. You teach the frameworks. You use the frameworks.

[00:09:42] Rajan:  In your view, what does humane technology mean? And, uh, there's a lot of discussion about it, but I'd love to know your take on it.

[00:09:49] Erika:  I think it's really about retaining the best parts of our humanity because of technology instead of in spite of it. And it's interesting because I do see this interplay of clean communication with humane technology. It's almost like a subset because as you know, I I run a monthly meetup for folks in the Bay Area. It's often product leaders who attend on humane technology, and we're looking at, okay, we're look at these harms around big tech or social media, and how could we mitigate those? And let's be really in the realm of possibility of of what we can do as opposed to, like, no, that's just how it is. But, like, humans build technology, so humans can build it in a way that serves humanity as opposed to numbing us out or, you know, getting addicted to different apps, etcetera. And I think to boil down very simply, something we can all ask ourselves is how am I feeling while I'm using this product, and how do I feel after I use it? You know, whether that's TikTok, Instagram, or b to b SaaS platform. And sometimes the answer is not great. Right? And sometimes like, oh my god, that was incredible. I got to a great outcome and I loved my experience of using this product. It really felt like it understood me. It supported me, and I think that's the ideal. That's what we all wanna shoot for when we're building products.

[00:11:26] Rajan:  In early stage startups, Erica, I'm always curious about surprises that teach you, uh, deep insights. What are, uh, surprises that you found along your way?

[00:11:35] Erika:  It's interesting because what we love to see is magical moments for our customers. And so there have been plenty of those and really having customers teach us how to use their own product. Like, we have a product manager. His name is Steven, and he's one of our customers. And he you know, we have gone through so many iterations of Storytel. We started with, uh, Slackbot. We moved to a Chrome extension and then to a web application, and then this idea of, like, a virtual me, you know, just like how many shots on goal can you have? Like, how many experiments can you have? And, um, Steven took this virtual me idea and was like, wait. No. I'm gonna I don't care about myself. I'm not gonna do that. I'm going to create, like, data containers for each of my customers and then customers as a whole. So I can and I wanna have virtual experiences with my customers and glean all the information I can from all our meeting notes, all our meeting recordings, transcripts, etcetera, and, um, and found like a new, you know, business opportunity based on that. So, um, so we use it that way internally now and we like change the direction of our product based on how he was using it.

[00:13:00] Rajan:  So most of the AI or startup world, uh, is actually cofounded by engineers or, like, you know, deeply tech people. You come from a writing background and a non tech background. So when you are, like, building this AI company, what are the differences that you are seeing, and what is the unique flavor that you are bringing?

[00:13:19] Erika:  It's interesting. I was recently there's this organization called the New Club for women engineers and women in AI, and I went to one of their events. And so many of the women there had changed careers. They were photographers. They were midwives. You know, so many different things. And I think, you know, as I saw the wave coming, I was like, how can we build AI with integrity? What does that mean? And I'm, you know, I'm still holding that question, and I that's really led to this interest and passion for humane technology, this intersection of humanity and technology. And so I think if I weren't at Storytel, it's quite possible that wouldn't be so much of the conversation at our company. There's so much about building a company. It's like we're it's humans. You've gotta be good at humans. You've gotta be able to build a product. If you can't do that, you don't have a company. But if you don't know how to interact with each other, it gets very messy very quickly, just even with two people. And so I think that's, I don't know, created a lot of, um, hope, enthusiasm, excitement, and probably most of all meaning, you know, when there's often, like, some tears of relief at off sites for like, oh, I've never been in a company where someone's actually cared

[00:14:48] Rajan:  before.

[00:14:49] Erika:  You know? I'm an engineer. I'm just a doer, and you just want to extract my time. You want deliverables from me. And, like, no. You wanna know what was going on inside me in this moment. And that's it's a first for most people. So that feels really integral to our, like, special sauce at Storytel and how we're building our company.

[00:15:14] Rajan:  Oh, that's powerful. You add the care part in it.

[00:15:17] Erika:  Yeah. Which is like it's not that people don't have that. It's just how do you bring it forward? It's there. It just has to be welcomed forward.

[00:15:24] Rajan:  What's something that is very obvious to you in AI and productivity that most people miss?

[00:15:30] Erika:  I don't know if it's most people, but the thing that pops up for me is we talk about this relationship with AI as a continuum from okay. Are you AI avoidant of, like, no way, a terminator, AI cautious? Okay. I'll play with a little bit. AI curious? Like, okay. I'm on board. I'm interested. I'm not a power user. Or are you just, like, using it every day or an AI enthusiast? And what it's really helpful to know what perspective people are coming from. And what I find really, really interesting and curious is you've got the AI enthusiasts, like, finding new ways to use AI every day, and we're teaching each other. And then there's like, you know, I'm using it to customize my proposals. And now I'm like, more than half of my deals are going through. That's an incredible outcome. And then there's people saying like, well, you know, this was misspelled, so this doesn't work. Like, I'm no. I can do meeting notes on my own. I'm fine. Or, you know, I was trying to look up football stats from last week and it didn't have it, so it doesn't work. And so it's like one, just not an understanding of of how LLMs work and that there's training data that's not just Google, but there's also how do you reconcile the fact that there's a minority of people who are getting insane value from AI? And then there's people who are saying, no. Nope. Doesn't work. It's like, how what I'd love we all get to be where we are. That's okay. But what I'd love is for the folks who are saying, no. AI doesn't work. Like, if they could just see the perspective they're coming from and just acknowledge that. Like, that's okay. I'm in a AI cautious place. I'm not ready yet. You know? At one point in life, I do a lot of yoga. I wasn't ready to do handstands, you know, and then I was. But it's not like handstands don't work.

[00:17:33] Rajan:  It's a great way to explain that. So in terms of things that don't work and it's some things work for some folks, some things don't work for somebody. Is that, like, really segmenting them into the outlook that they have, the point of view that they have, or the attitude that they have, or is it something more than just their perspective that makes thing work or not work?

[00:17:53] Erika:  That's a great question. And part of it is the perspective, for sure. But part of it, at least my theory around it, is how much pain are you in? You know, if you sure. If you do two meetings a month, maybe that's not gonna be a super interesting use case, um, for AI. But if you're in meetings all day long and you need to you know, you're a TPM or a CSM, you have to do follow-up emails for everyone you are in calls with, you're going to want AI. You needed it five years ago. So that's where that concept of like, oh, if this person's like, no, it has to be a % perfect. Otherwise, I want nothing to do with it. The supposition I make is, oh, that person isn't actually in enough pain. I don't know if that's true all the time, but that's been my takeaway.

[00:18:47] Rajan:  Other than that, are there, uh, things that those who are able to make AI work are able to do compared to others other than just the, like, you know, attitude point of view or maybe even that there, uh, there is a trigger for pain right now. Is there anything else that they do, any ecosystem that they are part of that are, like, useful conditions for them to make AI work for them?

[00:19:08] Erika:  I think there's something about coming with this attitude of curiosity that then the world is your oyster. You you can't do anything of, um, one of our users was saying, knock knock, k AI. Are you awake? You know, like, oh, how could I use AI for this? How could I use it for that? I'm writing some code. I barely know how to write code. Um, or I did it twenty years ago, and I'm going to build an application just using AI. So I'd say there's almost no limits when you're coming from a place of curiosity versus lots of limits. So I think we just can't always see the box that we're inside.

[00:19:46] Rajan:  Awesome. What is something that you know now that you wish, uh, someone had told you when you started?

[00:19:51] Erika:  Let's see. I think you know what I I feel is really important for cofounders because you're wearing so many hats. And in the beginning, it's just you and your cofounder or cofounders is what does great look like for each function, and what are the questions that you would want answers to that would help you know what great looks like? How to speak cross functionally. Some people have that skill probably honed, and a lot of us don't when we just haven't had that experience. It's really normal to not know that. And, um, um, like, hey. When when customer success looks great, this is what you're gonna get. And engineering, these are the questions you should be asking. Like, how are we customers of each other, and what should we be able to provide to each other? So what's a reasonable expectation?

[00:20:48] Rajan:  Erica, this one is gonna be the last question. What is something that you feel people are getting wrong about AI completely, that even smart people get wrong?

[00:20:56] Erika:  I think the fear of AI is this, you know, replacement. It's it's here to replace us. And I think it's an incredible augmenter and enhancer, and it could mean that there there is change. You know, we really believe AI isn't replacing jobs. It's replacing parts of every job. And when you come from if you can move your standpoint there of, like, okay. It's here to enhance. Like, how can I become not just an AI enthusiast, but an AI adventurer? And I think that's how we could really ride this wave from a place of joy, curiosity. You know, we're endlessly, like, looking under things to find more of what AI could help us be. I think if we're resisting, it's not that we shouldn't have guardrails or regulation. It's not about that. Um, but just in terms of how can I use this today? How could I use this, you know, a year from now, five years? You know, this is all changing so so quickly, and how can I ride it's something like turning into the wave? How do I lean into the wave as opposed to this doesn't work?

[00:22:14] Rajan:  Erica, thank you so much. It was wonderful talking to you. Thank you for joining the show.

[00:22:19] Erika:  My pleasure.

[00:22:21] Rajan:  That's it for this episode of pivotal clarity. This is an Opeka podcast. Opeka is an uh

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