Sramana Mitra: Very good. So, what is the genesis of the new company? RJ Talyor: Well, when we were purchased, I was playing around with the early versions of the generative text content. With my history in email marketing combined with my background as an English major [it’s really unique in the tech space], I went back
Sramana Mitra: So how did you finance all this in the early stages? RJ Talyor: At Pattern89, we raised money from a few different sources, mostly from Friends and Family/Angels. Then we were backed by High Alpha, which is a venture studio as well as a venture capital firm. They invested in Pattern89, which allowed us
Sramana Mitra: Two questions. One is, who came up with this technology? RJ Talyor: It’s a big combination of things. My co-founder, Jeff Cunning, and I kind of dreamed it up. Sramana Mitra: That’s the management part of it. You positioned the product and you kind of envisioned the product. But somebody still has to do the algorithm.
Sramana Mitra: So let’s go to the point where you’re starting the first company. Tell me what was going on in the market, what product angle did you take, and why? RJ Talyor: At that time, there was a huge proliferation of social channels. We had Facebook and then Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Reddit. Then
RJ talks thoughtfully about product idea validation in two AI companies, Pattern89 and Backstroke.Backstroke is operating in the cutting edge of Generative AI and delivering clear ROI solving a very specific problem. Sramana Mitra: All right, RJ, let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised? What kind
Sramana Mitra: Yes, it is tough. I have a slightly different kind of question as my last set of questions for you. No code, right now is a very attractive terminology in the industry, and part of it is coming from the fact that AI is automating everything, including coding. So no-code, AI-generated software is the future
So I wanna double click down on both of those marketing and go-to-market strategies: Google AdWords and Facebook advertising. So let’s do Google AdWords. Are you trying to do lead generation on no-code platforms? Jeff Kuo: No-code platform is only a tiny portion of our keyword targeting. We target a lot of different types of application
Sramana Mitra: Were US customers adopting your product in 2015? Jeff Kuo: Yes. Sramana Mitra: How were they finding you? What did you do to get found?