00:22 Hey, welcome back to the studio today with us. I'm so pleased to have with us Anna, because Anna, she doesn't just look good, she makes companies look good and she's doing all sorts of cool stuff. Anna, tell us who you are and what do you do?

00:35 Todd, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Anna Aniston, and I'm the founder of Data Science Salon. And we are one of the most diverse DS machine learning and AI communities in North America.00:50 All right, dive into that because everyone's talking about AI, but talk about the machine learning and AI that you're talking about.

00:59 Yeah, so we talk about, you know, the real, real technical stuff and actually what people are working on within the organization. So you know, I see a ton of different use cases and how people are trying to, a good thing right now that everybody knows about is ChatGPT. So now we're really looking at different use cases like at the Fed at SMP Global, at Viacom and Comcast and BuzzFeed and all those companies, what they're doing and how they're actually utilizing that technology internally. So it's really, really neat to be around that discussion and to be part of that community.

01:34  No kidding. I mean, imagine if the Fed could use this and actually cut out like a couple hundred thousand jobs, right, and save some money. Maybe we could learn, yeah, maybe we can cut our debt ceiling a little bit here. 

01:49 Yeah, I mean the possibilities are pretty limitless. So that's why it's so exciting, you know to be part of this

01:56 So this is really cool because everyone is intrigued by this concept and everyone is trying to jump in and play some part of the AI game. You on the other hand have been in this for a while and you've been playing with AI, you've been automating all sorts of things to happen from a machine learning perspective. How are you seeing the trend hitting the market and what are you seeing as trends that are gonna continue you think after this huge boom of AI?

02:24 Yeah, so I think, you know, right now AI is having kind of like an iPhone moment. So when the iPhone came out, you know, we saw new apps emerging like from the Jack, we saw Pandora and Spotify and SoundCloud. And then from the geolocation, we have Uber, Lyft, and then later Instacarts and DoorDashes and things like that. And then we from the camera, that's the big thing is that, right, we have Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, which came out. So now we're kind of seeing the same thing happening with Chad GPT that now that it is consumer facing, there's gonna be this whole wave of new products that are built on top of that, that solve a lot of problems, that make all businesses way more efficient. They, and I think it's not really gonna take away jobs. It's really gonna make businesses more efficient, be able to scale, make more money. So that's just gonna help us.

03:17 I agree. And from a marketer's perspective, I use it daily. Like for a lot of my clients, we're trying to come up with new content and new pieces for their websites, landing pages. I mean, let's face it, AI is incredible. It thinks for us in so many ways that are helpful. I love it. So who are your clients? Like, who are you helping with these solutions and what solution do you provide for them specifically?

03:42 So I mean, for our clients right now, I guess I don't would say I would have more of a community, right, like not really clients, we have partners and people like that, and we help them kind of present their solutions to the people they're trying to sell them to, right? So we're kind of the intersection between those things. So, and we do a lot, I mean, we not only use data to help connect people, but also just very, you know, personalized messaging. And all of that. And again, I also, you know, as you said, you use a lot of different tools to create those, right? And Chad GPT is one of the main ones, but that one, you have to be very careful. You can't really use it in blogs or like, or website copy because Google will ding you. So there's other tools though, that you could use like Jasper and some other ones that have proprietary models that won't ding you. So, but that's something people have to remember that you can't use it for everything. Right? So you have to be, you know, and now we're trying to figure out where you can use it. But with our, you know, again, with our partners and all of our sponsors, we make sure that they have like the exact access to the people they're trying to sell to. So that's, you know, kind of what DSS does really well is connecting those, you know, sellers and buyers together.04:59 Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone's just kind of scrambling right now figuring how do I use these tools the best? And I think you said it just right. It is kind of an iPhone moment where it's like, wait, the phone's cool, but this app is freaking amazing. You know what I mean? So are the things you're seeing trending right now that you feel like are must haves? You mentioned Jasper and a few other things. I was an early adopter of Jasper, but what are the tools you see in kind of hitting the market in a way that you think will be sustainable?

05:31 Yeah, well, I mean, I think definitely there's like copy.ai. That's another one that does really good job. Writer, Inc. Those are some of the tools that are good. And then another one that just came out of self is called typeface. And that's going to be, I don't know if you've heard of it, but that one is really going to change the way we do marketing. So there's definitely some cool players coming out. But I think what I would say now is if you're building any kind of product today you have to build AI into your product if you don't do that .Yeah, you are not going to be able to compete in any market these days so Yeah, so that's what we're seeing. 

06:08 So true.

06:09 Yeah.

06:10 So you become a matchmaker then for these companies that are generating AI apps and people that are looking for an AI solution for their particular industry.

06:21 Exactly. Yes. That's exactly what we do. And we do it in like, it and not in a salesy way, but like in a beautiful, like community oriented casual environment. Um, so, and yeah, and we've been really successful and we've worked with IBM, AWS, those are some of our larger clients, Azure, Oracle. So, uh, and we match them with the different people in our community. And then from the other consumer side, we work with like World Caribbean and S&P and Viacom. So a lot of different like really large organizations who are either trying to hire data scientists looking for cool tools, or they're trying to connect with buyers, right? So, or they're working on the same problem that they're trying to solve. And then they connect that way. And we've had people start companies that have met at our events, which is really cool. That's what I like to see. You know, that's like when I'm like, yes, we did a good job. Yeah.

07:13 That is the best. No, no, I'm with you 100%. And I love that the entrepreneurial community is just salivating around these concepts and these ideas and like, oh, I could use it to build that solution. 

07:26  know what are we gonna do?

07:27 I call it entrepreneurial ADD. So yeah, it definitely happens. And so this is really, really exciting. So as you kind of build these connections and make these meetings happen where to your point, you're talking to really big companies and even government agencies trying to find solutions that solution providers are like, man, if I could just get this company, that company to try it, I think we may have something to really grow a scale. Is that kind of what you're seeing?

07:58 Exactly. Yes, we're seeing that a lot and that we have an event at SMP in June and we're going to be back there in December, but we're seeing that. Like literally these companies finding these awesome solutions that we bring forward, right? And they're like, oh, I needed that. And like, I didn't know that this existed, right? So it's really cool.

08:16 Awesome and who doesn't want to go to Miami anyway right?

08:24 Well, we're not just in Miami, we're everywhere. We're in New York, San Francisco, Austin. We're all over the country, yeah.

08:26 Love it. All the tech hubs.

08:28 Yes, that's exactly it.

09:52 Smart, smart, smart. I love it. So tell us about the company. Now that we kind of know what you're doing and who you're doing it for and who you're trying to help, you know, you've got a tricky blend of trying to target two captive audiences at once. People that want AI solutions, people that have solutions trying to find people to use it. Right? How do you do that? I mean, that's a bit of a challenge sometimes having two ICPs. What are you doing to try and build both sides of that business?

10:24 Yeah. So I mean, I think the answer is time. It took a long time for us to get to. And I was telling you, we have like a million in revenue now, but we did the bootstrap. Right. And it just takes, I mean, I think for a business like this, it takes time. Um, but now I feel like we're finally at an intersection where now it's like when you, you actually take time, you build the community, you have trust with the brands. You have relationships, right? This isn't like the same as you're selling like a SaaS application or something, right. This is all based on relationships, high quality content that we create. We have to create a lot of content. Um, and that's why, you know, like, so we were credible. We have to have a lot of advisors that are very credible. Uh, so that all takes time. So I think for something like this, it really, it's time. And a lot of people don't have patience to do that. Like, like it's true. Right. So it's not for everybody, but I think once you get to a certain point. Then you could really like scale it after that because, you know, we can like, we have a lot of different things we can do. We could license it out to other people, right? Like, um, we are actually going to be going into real estate. We're building a coworking space that's going to be connected to that. And we're going to have a whole kind of a different model, but very similar again to the community. So,

11:38 Create a community of engineers and users and marketers who can say, whoa, let's do this, right?

11:45 Well, it's no, it's going to be more focused again on the same people we have in DSS. So people, again, the people that are looking for solutions, the ones that are building them, they will all be kind of in the same ecosystem in one spot. And we'll do, you know, we'll create a lot of content around and that's that actually will create a lot of events and things like that for those people, right. So yeah, it's something very unique. It's not like a we work or anything. It's very, very specific to this, like technical audience.

12:13 I like what you're doing and I like what you're describing. And for those of you listening, this is a great example of a founder who is right in that stage of, okay, we've launched, we're finding product market fit, we're generating positive revenue, we're net positive, like we bootstrapped. You're in a beautiful position right now, Anna, where a lot of people hope to get to. And there's a lot of people listening who are just maybe even five steps ahead of you saying, okay, Anna. What's your next play? Because you gotta figure out what your next play is right now so that you can really pounce on the opportunity. What are you seeing as your next play? What do you kind of, what's on top of mind for Anna right now as you think, okay, final half of 2023, into 2024, where do I wanna get to and when is the potential money raise and all these kinds of things that you're thinking about, where are you at?

13:11 Yeah, well, I think, yeah, we're really, you know, again, and I think it's very important to tell people that we thought that COVID was gonna kill us. So, you know, because we were doing a lot of in-person, you know, things and that all went away, but the opposite actually,

13:25 I know the feeling.

13:26 Yeah, so, but the opposite actually happened. We actually were able to, you know, people clambered looking for content online, sponsors needed something to do, something to sponsor, eh? Cause they need leads. So we were able to flip it around, I was able to also have different resources to manage that and scale that. So I think what's up next is really work like focusing on quality, like higher quality content, higher quality events. And then we're launching our co-working space at the end of next year. And then after that, we'll be open to taking probably some funds then to really scale that together, you know, into different cities and markets and such. So that's kind of what we're looking at. So it's really exciting. And the whole GemAI, ChatGPT thing also gave us a boost as well, as you can imagine, right. So,

14:16 I'm sure it did, I'm sure it did. I mean, 2023 I think will forever be the year that people discovered the beauty of AI. And I think, I remember 2006 was just a beautiful year of the iPhone and of Google Cloud. That all happened at the same time.

14:33 Yes. Yes, and that also, yeah, that, yeah.

14:34 I remember the first time, right? I mean, the first time you could upload a doc and have somebody else edit it real time with you was like, whoa, what just happened? And I think we're to your point, we're kind of at that point right now where it's like, holy crap, you know, are my kids ever gonna do homework again or are they just gonna learn ways to act like GPT to do their homework? You know what I mean? It's kind of fun.

15:01 Yeah, I mean, I guess, and that's a whole thing that is the exciting, yeah, the process that will discover what's going to happen, right, and how companies and, you know, the government and everybody's going to step in parents and how we're going to deal with that problem. And that's exciting place to be.

15:16 It is an exciting place to be. So talk to us about challenges, because everyone looks at someone in your position and thinks, okay, I wish I was at that point. I wish I was doing one to five million a year. I wish I was like profitable. What are the biggest challenges? What are some things that you didn't expect that kind of hit you? I mean, you mentioned COVID, but like, what are some things that happened that you were like, ah, that kind of sucked, that hurt.

15:43 Yeah, well, I feel like resources have hiring and I think, you know, that's always been kind of now it's much better actually. The market. Yeah, but it was definitely has always been a challenge finding really good people that believe and, you know, we're a little bit in a technical space. So that kind of understand or passionate about that and also kind of, you know, also finding people that have the same core values and maintaining those as you grow, right? That's also like something that people have to keep in mind that that's very, very important to have like the same vision in the beginning that you had at the end. And yeah, I think for me it's definitely been, yeah. And like, again, sometimes like the economy affects this stuff, right? Like I think for any business. So like, yeah, COVID and then just some other up and down things would, you know, definitely, we feel that as like smaller businesses and communities.

16:33 Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. And I think that you've been able to pivot really well. It sounds like you got super creative when you thought maybe things were gonna fall apart there. And I'm proud of you for doing that. That takes a lot of courage to just kind of like, okay, we were totally an in-person event thing and now how do we leverage what we've got and what we're doing? And so congrats on doing that. That's really, really awesome.

16:56 Thank you. And I think again, it's because my background is mostly in digital. So I think it was not, you know, like that's more comfortable for me than the, uh, the in-person thing, you know, to be honest. So I feel like, yeah, like, and now we're doing a mix of both, right. And I love building community. I think, you know, you do have to be in person for actual, like those really like true connections. You have to meet somebody in person really like, so.

17:20 Right, right, right. I'm with ya, I'm with ya. I mean, we've been launching a virtual peer group and we're definitely all about the in-person events once a month and so it has to be a big piece of what we're doing. People are still human and you have to be able to leverage the tech and the in-person to really find some solid growth in most industries. So, I love what you're doing, 

17:41 100%. 

17:42  I love what you're doing.

17:43 Thank you! 

17:44  Anna, so talk to us about, If you were looking back to your five years ago self and saying, hey, make sure you do this, this and this, what would those three things be? Two or three things that you would tell yourself at the beginning stages to get to where you're at right now.

18:04 Gosh, with this, I mean, I think it's hard with this one because of all the different, like, you know, like we talked to COVID. 

18:13 Random things that happen?

18:14 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, I definitely, but I mean, I feel like just be, be paid more patient, right? Like, cause I feel like it's really easy. And for me, like I get pulled into a lot of different directions and people will reach out to me about new ideas and things like that. So really like not being distracted, you know, and I think, you know, and I have, and actually this is I've been working on this for a while. Like probably the longest thing I've worked on is because it's a lot of fun and I'm always learning something, you know what I mean? But it doesn't mean that it's the last thing I'm doing, you know, and I tend to do a lot, you know, different things at once. I think there's definitely more things in my horizon of creation in the future, near future.

18:51 I love it. Well, we're definitely gonna put, we've got in the show notes below, links to all your stuff. I know you've got a couple of brands that you're pushing and really pressing out into the public face right now. And I know that you've got a lot of creativity flowing into AI ideas and kind of seeing all the possibilities and places you could step into. But as you are building this community, how do people get involved? What is the, what are you doing to try and encourage people to bring ideas and bring needs and bring these solutions to together?

19:26 Yeah. So I mean, you could get involved by coming to our next event. We're actually doing a whole week of events in Miami. We do a data science salon, uh, at Miami machine learning week every year here. And then we're going to be in San Francisco, uh, and then we're going to be in New York. So we're going to be in Seattle and then Austin. So we're going to be in those places in person, but you can always find us online. You could go to DataScience.Salon. And you could find a lot of different resources there. If you're just curious about the space or if you really like wanna dive in, we have a lot of different things for you to be excited about there.

20:06 it, love it. I know there's a lot of people listening who are in the AI space, and they're probably wondering how they can get to your events and what they can do about it. So we'll put notes in the show notes below, and make sure that you connect on those links and figure out a way to get involved, because listen, for all you creatives out there trying to figure out what your play is with AI, this is a great way to connect with those people, and Anna is providing a wonderful solution to these how do I connect with people? I wanna meet the real people involved. I don't wanna just see their LinkedIn profiles. I wanna get together and talk and chat and really understand how will they know how to solve my problem. So this is a great way to do it, Anna. I love what you're doing.

20:46 Exactly. And speaking of creatives, I just turned in a talk to Saud by about like, can creatives, you know, live together with Jenny and I actually have a really cool presentation about that, but I hope that they accept. But yeah, it's totally about what you're talking. 

21:02 I love it. Love it.

21:03 Yeah. Because you know, people are scared, right? But it's not scary. It's good. It's really good.

21:05 Oh yeah, I love it. Well, Anna, thank you so much. And as we look back, I love to ask founders this question of who would you look to in your immediate community of people and say, you know what, this person has really inspired me, this person really kind of either mentored me or had a real impact on what I've been able to grow so far. Is there somebody I'd like to give a shout out to today?

21:30 Yeah, sure. I mean, I think one of those people is Q. He's actually been one of our advisors and a friend and just in the community for many years. And I think he's just always been very supportive and helping with all the technical, very, very technical things that I don't understand. So without him, I don't think we would be here. So thank you so much, Q. You're awesome.

22:06 I think that is an amazing shout out to anyone whose name is Q. I mean, it just, James Bond really made that name asynchronous with someone who's gonna bring you awesome technical solutions. So that's awesome. 

22:10 Exactly.

22:11 Well, Anna, thanks again so much. We really appreciate your time. And for those of you listening, you are not far from where Anna is right now. And those of you that are past Anna, doesn't it feel good to see people in this awesome pivotal point right now in their business where it's like, yes, we're making money, yes, we've been able to bootstrap, yes, we're growing and we've got new ideas going into market. This is an exciting stage and Anna, I'm so excited for you and I cannot wait to catch up with you in a year and see what you've been able to do with what you've been building right now because this is just a fun, fun stage and your growth journey is just getting going. And so this is so cool. Way to go and thanks for being here.

22:54 Thank you, Todd. Thank you, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.