Tech Titans: Lessons From Shipping Felix AI to Market with Mario Ciabarra, CEO of Quantum Metric

(Mario at 00:00:00) It's not hard to create a multibillion dollar success. It's like execution day in and day out. It's just hard work. And you better love the hard work or else it's probably not gonna work out. You're gonna end up like the kids at the soccer game that wanna quit after the first game. Our mission statement is we help companies build cultures maniacally focused on winning the hearts of their customer.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:25) I'm actually curious because I got an email the other day that said it was a market research report and they said one out of every eight transformation AI type projects actually sees the light of day and succeeds. And I was like, well, that's like a 90% failure rate. Why? You know, so I'm curious with that information. First of all, that's where we could start. Is that true? Do you see a lot of people failing to achieve these gen AI projects?

(Mario at 00:00:52) I think that in itself is a myth. I think it's way higher because I think we, you know, like any new technology where, wow, this could solve everything, and it's a panacea. And then we start to get... You know, I think Gartner calls it this trough of disillusionment, et cetera. There's this hype cycle. And what is it that we see working? You know, I think Sam Altman of OpenAI, as we all know, he knew early on. I was in a conference where he shared, I think, the early successes, '24, '25, will be in call center technology. He knew it. And I think part of it is because it's the paradigm shift. If you're a technologist listening to this podcast, you probably can relate with this concept of, you know, deterministic outcomes. You know, if I give a program the same inputs, I'll end up with the same outputs. And that's not generative AI.

(Mario at 00:01:50) We know this in our own personal consumption of generative AI. We ask the same question seven times. We get seven different answers. Sometimes they're pretty similar. Sometimes they could be on different ends of the spectrum. Sometimes a yes can be a no when we ask it a very direct question, and that doesn't make sense in our programming past. And the fundamentals of what we learned about technology doesn't make quite sense. And so I think there was this, wow, it can do anything perspective, and so we can apply it anywhere. And I think we've all come to realize that's not true. Where can we apply it? And we saw this first wave of... I'll just use the words co-piloting. Because we realized the machine can't do it perfectly, so we're gonna need a human in a loop. And a human plus the machine can do better. And so we're trying to figure out what are the applications where this drives real economic benefit in organizations?

(Mario at 00:02:42) And so I've seen a lot of people say that, you know, gen AI... Hey, we have gen AI X or Y, or we rebranded, or we pivoted to generative AI. And most of those, I greet with a strong taste of skepticism because there's a lot of people saying they have something that does something with generative AI that doesn't really have economic benefit, and it works great in a single demo. And so I look at the bar to pass of is this one of the successes? Does it work at a high consistency rate for the objective it was trying to do? Not did it work in the demo? Because people always show me good demos. I think one of the false veils of generative AI, it's so easy. It's like putting two Lego blocks together.

(Mario at 00:03:30) You can get it to work so quickly, but you can't see does it work consistently without you testing over and over in different datasets. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, if people walk away from this podcast thinking, it's not about getting the two Lego blocks together and you can get it to work. Because linking an API into Gemini is super simple. We could be done by the end of the hour. And you could say, wow, it works. But it's really about that patience for how do you test and determine its consistency. Does it really work majority of the time? And I think that's the big leap, bringing a generative AI project to market. Can you get it to work in all different sorts of circumstances for whatever project you're trying to solve for?

(Mario at 00:04:13) So we had this idea. We tested the story of it working, and it resonated strongly with executive leaders. And then we iterated, iterated. And, you know, I think some of the takeaways that I would have had were finding the right dataset to get to the right answer in the most consistent way was probably the most secretive piece of our success. It's really hard to figure out what goes in really changes what comes out. And I can go into more detail about it if you like, Joel. But I think how do you come up with a great generative AI strategy is list 10 ideas. Things that you probably could create, and then go test the market. Do any of those 10 ideas resonate with your audience? If it's none, come up with another 10. If one of those ideas resonates very strongly, and I like the words gets people to get out of their seat, that's the project I'd go work on.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:11) Yeah. So you stole the scientific method.

(Mario at 00:05:13) Yeah. I mean, none of this is actually super secretive.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:16) Oh my gosh. Mario has the key to success that no one else has.

(Mario at 00:05:16) I think, you know, I'll tell you in that same vein, you know, Quantum has become a multibillion dollar success. And probably the meanest thing I say to people is it's not hard to create a multibillion dollar success. I don't really think it is. I think it's just... It's execution day in and day out. And I remain as passionate as I was 10 years ago. And if you can stay passionate about what you do, every day is a joy. And it's not like... There's no secret shortcut to get there. It's a hustle, and it's staying passionate. And you can create a great economic success, a successful business. But the same thing around generative AI. It's just you gotta do the hustle. You gotta do the work.

(Mario at 00:06:02) There's no... You're not gonna get on this podcast and have this super secretive, oh, that's how you do it really with ease and then in two seconds. So it's just hard work, and you better love the hard work or else it's probably not gonna work out. You're gonna end up like the kids at the soccer game that wanna quit after the first game.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:20) Yeah. When I started the show, it took me two years, 200 episodes before I made a dollar. Yeah. So that's... People will always ask, what's your advice for starting a podcast? I'm like, just decide that you're gonna do it until you die and be okay on your deathbed if it's not successful because you gave it everything you had.

(Mario at 00:06:37) I remember seeing a video by Will Smith and Harrison Ford, and, you know, they're separate videos, but they're the same content. You know, Harrison Ford talked about I got on the bus to go to Hollywood every day, and, you know, every day I wasn't selected to be in Star Wars. Right? But every day, the people on that bus thinned out. And, eventually, I was the only one on the bus, so I got picked. And Will Smith talks about the same perspective of I would rather die than fail. And so with that mindset, you're never going to beat me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:16) That is exactly the case. I've seen both. I haven't seen the Harrison Ford clip, but I've seen that Will Smith one a couple times in the motivational audio YouTube videos that I'll watch. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

(Mario at 00:07:25) I grew up in Philly, and I know Will's had his bumps along his career in the last couple years. But that human being drives with passion, and that is the secret to his success. And if you go back and you look at the majority of successful folks, they're passionate. They do not want to fail. They won't give up. And I think, you know, one thing I read recently was they're optimists. They believe in themselves despite others may not believe in them. They don't need others to say, oh, hey, Joel. You're gonna make it. You're gonna make it. Joel intrinsically knows inside. He's going to make it. He's going to find a way. If he just keeps trying, A, he'll never fail, and B, eventually, he'll get to success.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:07) Yeah. Or I'll die trying, which I'm okay with.

(Mario at 00:08:10) You know what the funny thing is, you know, early on, I don't really say that much, but I used to say I would rather die than fail, but I really don't wanna die. It's really important for me to not die and, you know, to convey how much I want to succeed. But I got a letter in the mail yesterday, and it was a thank you card from one of my team members. And what had happened about a few months ago, I'd caught wind that one of our team members had to have an operation that wasn't going to be covered by our insurance. This person had served in the military in 2007 in Afghanistan, and his vehicle was hit by an IED. And as he was jarred, the vehicle smashed into his jaw. He's suffering from his injuries. He's about to blackout. And just before, he pulls a couple of his team members out of the burning vehicle, and then he passes out.

(Mario at 00:09:11) He wakes up two and a half weeks later back in the U.S. His father is by his bedside. He thought he had died and gone to heaven. And turns out he was just in a medically induced coma for two and a half weeks because of his injuries. He gets discharged. You know, his father, his grandfather had served in the military, so this was his future. He thought he was gonna go serve in the military the rest of his life. Now he's discharged for medical reasons. So he's kinda gotta go find his new footing in life, and he ends up in SaaS... In the SaaS business, and he ends up working at Quantum.

(Mario at 00:09:46) And he starts to feel pain in part of the area where he had the surgery, and he wants to get surgery. And the VA says, no. It's for cosmetic reasons, which is not. He's in pain. Our insurance won't cover it because the VA won't cover it. And he's got a family. And he's looking at a large medical bill and not knowing what to do. So I consulted a few people and figured out what's the best thing to do? And, you know, I've had fortune during my career. This is my fourth startup.

(Mario at 00:10:17) And the easiest thing for me is I just call them up, and we chatted for a little bit. And I said, look. I just wanna let you know I'm going to personally cover the medical costs. This is crazy. I'm really sorry that our insurance isn't covering it. I'm disappointed that the VA is not covering it, but I can't have this impact your family life. You know? It's going to be a struggle for your family, and it shouldn't be. You know? And I distinctly remember thanking him for his service, and I'm sorry that the system is letting you down, but I don't have to be the one that lets you down. Things all worked out.

(Mario at 00:10:53) He sent me a letter, and, you know, he said, you know, he was in tears on the call. He was so appreciative of the kind of care that our team was having for him in this difficult moment for him. So I'll ask you, Joel. Have you ever tried to open a bank account, make a payment, change your flight, purchase something online, and encountered a friction that may just say, oh, gosh. Let's say it's change your flight. I'm at the airport. I've gotta change my flight. The app isn't working, and you have two choices. Stand in line, which I'm gonna guess you don't wanna do, or call.

(Mario at 00:11:28) And so I'm going to just figure that Joel's gonna call. And then Joel calls, and he has to navigate the numbers one through nine on his cell phone. And then they say, hi, Joel. How are you? Well, I'm trying to change my flight. Oh, Joel, you're trying to do same day of travel? Hold on a second. Let me transfer you. Hi, Joel. How are you? Now the crazy thing is they know exactly what Joel is doing. They have instrumentation of what Joel was doing on his cell phone in their app. They know he was trying to change his flight, but they don't have a way to get that data to the call center. So they just have to go through Joel manually pressing one through nine and asking Joel what he needs. Imagine instead with generative AI, with Felix AI from Quantum Metric, the call looks like this. You didn't press one through nine because we routed Joel to the expert that can help Joel right now. And they pick up and they say, hi, Joel. It looks like you're trying to change your flight back to Nashville, but you got an error in the app. Really sorry about the error. Can I help you with that or something else?

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:31) Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. That's what we want.

(Mario at 00:12:34) The future. But I hope my... What I hope for you and maybe the listeners on the podcast, the next time you're pressing one through nine on your cell phone, you're wondering why that organization hasn't quite subscribed to this new paradigm of understanding the customer in real time, something that generative AI is helping us activate. So we've had the data, but we don't know how to activate that data. Our mission statement is we help companies build cultures maniacally focused on winning the hearts of their customer. And a fun example of that actually happening in the real world is one of the companies that we work with, they sent out promo codes. Huge hit to the website. People were really excited about getting 20% off.

(Mario at 00:13:15) It was something like "fall holidays" was the name of the promo code, and it was working. People were applying it on the desktop. They came to find out using Quantum. On mobile, you know what happens? You type "fall holidays" in a mobile text field. Do you know what happens? No. It puts a space between "fall" and "holidays." So they type "fall holidays," but it ends up "fall space holidays" from autocorrect. They hit apply. It doesn't work. So this company, this brand started using Quantum. They're like, oh my gosh. We sent out this marketing campaign. We're getting the traffic. It's not converting. And they get to, you know, a couple of layers deep to understand the why to use Felix AI and saying they're typing this promo code and it's not working, and immediately, wow. It's got a space in it. So they went back and they added "fall space holidays" as a promo code, and they made millions of dollars of more revenue from that campaign. So it's understanding what's causing that friction.

(Mario at 00:14:07) I will say, Joel, we hire people on three core values. It's on the back of my shirt. And on the back of my shirt, it says passion, persistence, and integrity. And I interview every team member, and I would encourage every leader, technology or otherwise, to do that as well. I interview them. Of course, my team will interview them for... Did they have the right skills to be on our team? But when they get to me, I'm not interviewing them, do you have the tech skills to do X, Y, or Z or to be a marketer or to be a seller? I might ask a few questions in that genre, but what I'm really trying to understand is, are they passionate about what they do? Because when they come to work and they're passionate, we're all gonna have a lot of fun. Are they persistent? Because we talked about it earlier. You might not succeed on your first attempt, but get it across the finish line. I don't wanna micromanage you to do that. And then integrity, if you win but you weren't honest with yourself, your customer, your peers, I found it doesn't feel fun.

(Mario at 00:15:04) So those three things are what I look for on our team. So if you go beyond Catherine and Zoe and you interview or meet or connect or work with the other near 400 team members here at Quantum, I think you'll say the same thing about them, that they're just fun and great people to work with, and they're passionate about what they do.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:24) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.