Designing Intuitive Technology with Empathy and Purpose with Josh Smith and Jonathan Sasse
This week on the podcast Matt sits down with Josh Smith, CEO and Jonathan Sasse, Chief Strategy Officer of Metova Strategies. During the episode they discuss their roles at Metova and how the company has pivoted through the years since the initial founding in Franklin, Tennessee. They then dive into how empathy and effective listening to customers gives Metova a competitive advantage. They focus on understanding what customers actually need, not just building technologically capable products. They finish with a discussion around the importance of mobile-first design, the Internet of Things and other technology shifts like generative AI.
Transcript
And it's remarkable how many companies
Jonathan Sasse:are so internally focused on how do we do the right thing for the
Jonathan Sasse:business? How do we build the things we want to build, without
Jonathan Sasse:ever really spending enough time with our customers to know what
Jonathan Sasse:do your customers want from you in the first place? And what's
Jonathan Sasse:most important to them?
Matt Waller:Excellence, professionalism, innovation, and
Matt Waller:collegiality. These are the values of the Sam M. Walton
Matt Waller:College of Business explores in education, business and the
Matt Waller:lives of people we meet every day, I'm Matt Waller, Dean of
Matt Waller:the Walton College and welcome to the be epic podcast. I have
Matt Waller:with me today, Josh Smith, who is CEO of Metova. And Jonathan
Matt Waller:Sasse, who's the Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you both for
Matt Waller:joining me today.
Jonathan Sasse:Thank you. Good to be here.
Matt Waller:So Josh, would you mind telling us a little bit
Matt Waller:about Metova?
Josh Smith:Sure, yeah. So. So Metova was founded in 2006.
Josh Smith:Really, around developing mobile applications. And at that time,
Josh Smith:really, BlackBerry, and Palm were mobile. And so for the past
Josh Smith:17 years, we've continued to lean into mobile and have
Josh Smith:expanded beyond just not just Franklin, Tennessee, where we
Josh Smith:started, but we're, you know, throughout the US and in Latin
Josh Smith:America, doing all sorts of things mobile, but then also
Josh Smith:digital transformation, digital technology partner to large
Josh Smith:corporations.
Matt Waller:And, Jonathan, I know, you have you're the chief
Matt Waller:strategy officer. What does that mean? What do you what do you
Matt Waller:focus on as Chief Strategy Officer?
Jonathan Sasse:Well, a lot of the companies that we work with
Jonathan Sasse:are at some point of a pivot in their strategy, their roadmap,
Jonathan Sasse:they're facing some kind of transformation. Typically, it's
Jonathan Sasse:not in their DNA to do that, especially if it's leaning into
Jonathan Sasse:technology that they don't understand. So a lot of what I
Jonathan Sasse:do is working with those companies, the senior
Jonathan Sasse:stakeholders, to better define what their customers need from
Jonathan Sasse:them, what their capabilities are, and what their roadmap
Jonathan Sasse:should probably look like in order to deliver on that.
Matt Waller:I see. Josh, you know, you're in Bentonville.
Josh Smith:That's right.
Matt Waller:But the company didn't it start in Little Rock?
Josh Smith:Company started in Franklin, Tennessee.
Matt Waller:Oh, Franklin, Tennessee ok.
Josh Smith:Yeah, that's where the original founder was from.
Josh Smith:And then a gentleman from Arkansas acquired it back in
Josh Smith:like 2010 or 11. That's when we became begin to have an Arkansas
Josh Smith:presence. It's a long road after that, there's been several
Josh Smith:different transactions that have happened, private equity
Josh Smith:investors. But this latest iteration, no longer do we have
Josh Smith:any institutional investors and, and we relocated headquarters to
Josh Smith:Bentonville.
Matt Waller:Well that's great, and you've been with Metova for
Matt Waller:almost 10 years at this point.
Josh Smith:Yes. Crazy to think. Yes.
Matt Waller:So tell me a little bit. Now I know you've you've
Matt Waller:had different roles there. But you've been CEO for almost six
Matt Waller:years. Would you tell me a little bit more about your
Matt Waller:company positioning? I know you where you started? Are there any
Matt Waller:verticals, you focus on more than others?
Josh Smith:Yeah, I'll be pitching us to Jonathan here.
Matt Waller:Well, you know, and and I've noticed for you,
Matt Waller:But it's really fascinating because we've been doing this
Matt Waller:for so long. And actually, Jonathan and I were originally
Matt Waller:introduced by the founder of Metova. We were both had our own
Matt Waller:startup companies. Josh had Slacker Radio, I had First Orion
Matt Waller:Privacy Star, we were trying to solve the same problems. But
Matt Waller:being serial entrepreneurs and and being able to work with all
Matt Waller:these companies for all these years. It makes us kind of
Matt Waller:industry agnostic. We can go in and learn, you know, how a
Matt Waller:company makes money, how they lose money, where maybe adjacent
Matt Waller:revenue opportunities are, who the stakeholders are, who their
Matt Waller:customers are, and then from there, build out you know their
Matt Waller:product roadmaps and strategies going forward and then have the
Matt Waller:development talent to go ahead and deliver on that.
Matt Waller:Jonathan, also have been involved with another Arkansas
Matt Waller:company, First Orion. And I had actually I've done a podcast
Matt Waller:recording with Charles Morgan. Seems like it was a year or two
Matt Waller:ago, I can't remember exactly, but he's an amazing individual.
Matt Waller:Are you still engaged with First Orion at all?
Jonathan Sasse:Yeah, I do still communicate with them. I'm, I'm
Jonathan Sasse:a big fan of Charles, I've worked with him pretty closely
Jonathan Sasse:as we've that company went through a number of
Jonathan Sasse:transformations as well. So I kind of came in to do very
Jonathan Sasse:similar things I'm doing at Metova now, which is take a look
Jonathan Sasse:at the opportunities to the future and try and rewrite the
Jonathan Sasse:roadmap a little bit. And with Charles's help and with, you
Jonathan Sasse:know, Jeff Stalnacker and some of the others that were there.
Jonathan Sasse:We turned that company in a pretty sharp direction, in a
Jonathan Sasse:short amount of time and really created an opportunity for the
Jonathan Sasse:future. That was, that was a good stretch.
Matt Waller:And I noticed that you are on the Forbes
Matt Waller:communications council. So you contribute articles to Forbes,
Matt Waller:what kinds of articles do you, do you write?
Jonathan Sasse:A lot of what we focus on is, is helping people
Jonathan Sasse:through those transformation challenges. So, you know, when
Jonathan Sasse:do you do it? How do you do it? What kind of signals do you look
Jonathan Sasse:for? You know, really trying to get people very specific things
Jonathan Sasse:to key in on to help them understand, when's the right
Jonathan Sasse:time to invest? Do you need to seek help? You know, are there
Jonathan Sasse:internal resources you can tap into for that? So really trying
Jonathan Sasse:to write, you know, a lot of super helpful content for people
Jonathan Sasse:that have big decisions to make and are looking for, you know,
Jonathan Sasse:how do I take the first step in the right direction?
Matt Waller:Josh, maybe, let's suppose, you know, technology, a
Matt Waller:lot of times people think of technology as just being
Matt Waller:something behind the scenes. But technology, the technology that
Matt Waller:you have, in your company can actually affect the brand that
Matt Waller:you wind up building. Is it hard to get companies to see that and
Matt Waller:to understand that?
Josh Smith:It's a very long process. So I'm not sure who
Josh Smith:said this, but the best technology is a technology you
Josh Smith:don't even know you're interacting with it, right? You
Josh Smith:get, and then the coding part of it, not a lot of people are able
Josh Smith:to see that. It's not something they can participate in. So when
Josh Smith:we're working with clients, usually the the strategy piece
Josh Smith:of it and design, a lot of input goes into that, because the
Josh Smith:customers can, you know, they can see it, and can help drive
Josh Smith:that and are our goal is to really kind of stay focused on
Josh Smith:what is it's gonna drive their business forward, and how to do
Josh Smith:that in the most simple way, from a human interface
Josh Smith:perspective, and then do the hard part with it with the
Josh Smith:engineering to make that make that possible.
Matt Waller:And I know that, you know, workflows and internal
Matt Waller:communication patterns and trying to enhance customer
Matt Waller:experience. You know, a lot of that you can do with technology
Matt Waller:you have, but that you develop with your companies. But what
Matt Waller:about companies that say, look, we we need your help here. But
Matt Waller:there's also existing technologies in these other
Matt Waller:spaces? Can you? Will you help with that as well?
Josh Smith:We, generally, that is always part of the equation,
Josh Smith:right? It's usually companies have been up in business for a
Josh Smith:long time, sometimes 20, 30, 60 years, and are looking to make a
Josh Smith:transition to digital. They've got a huge investment in that
Josh Smith:technology stack that they've developed over the years, and
Josh Smith:you can't just rip and replace it. So it is a very gradual
Josh Smith:process of identifying what parts of the business can we
Josh Smith:impact now? And what internal systems do we need to leverage
Josh Smith:to be able to do that? And how do we expose those capabilities
Josh Smith:to actually make that experience happen? And I remember one
Josh Smith:client in particular that we had several years ago, first
Josh Smith:question we asked is, how does a user create an account, and it
Josh Smith:was all blank stares in the room as well, they call into customer
Josh Smith:service, and the customer service person takes the
Josh Smith:information down, like okay, so now we know where we need to
Josh Smith:start.
Matt Waller:Well, you know, Jonathan, when you it seems like
Matt Waller:for me, at least, so many of the apps I use on my phone,
Matt Waller:unfortunately, seem like they were created for my computer.
Matt Waller:But this concept, would you mind speaking a little bit to this
Matt Waller:concept of mobile first?
Jonathan Sasse:Yeah, I mean, the thing with mobile that, that
Jonathan Sasse:is interesting, when you think of it, there's everything you do
Jonathan Sasse:on your phone, your banks, your pizza delivery, whatever it
Jonathan Sasse:might be. It used to be that, as businesses, we would look at
Jonathan Sasse:other businesses like ours, to see what was competitive. You
Jonathan Sasse:know, if I'm a lawn care company, I look at what the
Jonathan Sasse:other lawn care companies do. If I sell TVs, I see what the other
Jonathan Sasse:TV guys are doing. But today, and as to your point, I when I
Jonathan Sasse:go through all the apps on my phone to me, I'm I'm engaging as
Jonathan Sasse:a customer in the same universe. And so I have certain
Jonathan Sasse:expectations I have as I go from app to app to app, I don't care
Jonathan Sasse:what the other gym apps do. But I know my other apps work really
Jonathan Sasse:nice. And they're really easy to use. And I can tap exactly where
Jonathan Sasse:I want to tap and they're really intuitive. And that's the level
Jonathan Sasse:of the way that customers are looking at things. Amazon does
Jonathan Sasse:things a certain way. For me, Walmart does certain things for
Jonathan Sasse:me, Netflix, whatever it might be. And so I have those
Jonathan Sasse:expectations that every app I use should be able to leverage
Jonathan Sasse:that technology, the elegance of the design those I have those
Jonathan Sasse:expectations. So it's a lot easier to be disappointed as a
Jonathan Sasse:customer too when you open up a new app, you're like, this isn't
Jonathan Sasse:as good as it should be. And I have that lens I can apply to
Jonathan Sasse:that because I have 10 other apps that can do that. You know
Jonathan Sasse:whether it's telling me when the delivery is going to be made, or
Jonathan Sasse:recommending things I might like or just making it easy to book
Jonathan Sasse:an appointment. And so we have to be really aware of that, as
Jonathan Sasse:we're designing apps, we're working with companies and
Jonathan Sasse:brands to make sure that you might have looked competitively
Jonathan Sasse:across your landscape to see what everybody else is doing and
Jonathan Sasse:try and make something as good. Or maybe even slightly better
Jonathan Sasse:than that. But you have to realize that your customers are
Jonathan Sasse:comparing you to the best experiences in the world every
Matt Waller:That is, right. And you can tell a big difference. I
Matt Waller:single day.
Matt Waller:mean, there's some apps you use that you think this is so
Matt Waller:intuitive, and others, you know, there was one app I was using
Matt Waller:not too long ago, and it had pretty good ratings. But it was
Matt Waller:for keeping track of your time. It's used primarily for
Matt Waller:consultants, but I, I like to keep track of my time, where am
Matt Waller:I spending my time, compared to where should I spend my time?
Matt Waller:This thing was so unintuitive, I think it's hard to take
Matt Waller:something that already exists and make it mobile first, if you
Matt Waller:will.
Jonathan Sasse:Yeah, the investment in that is always the
Jonathan Sasse:challenge because you spend all these resources to get where you
Jonathan Sasse:are. And and then you release it to the world and find out that
Jonathan Sasse:it's not what everybody hoped it would be. And it's very
Jonathan Sasse:difficult at that point, where you start taking a look at your
Jonathan Sasse:customer experience after you've produced your thing. And that's
Jonathan Sasse:where, you know, when we talk about these early strategy
Jonathan Sasse:sessions with with people that we work with, is trying to get
Jonathan Sasse:through that first, before you ever write a line of code is
Jonathan Sasse:let's make sure we understand what this experience needs to
Jonathan Sasse:be. So that we don't build a thing that's functionally
Jonathan Sasse:capable, but almost impossible to use.
Josh Smith:And then what you know and what do your customers
Josh Smith:use? You've got all all that system of ERP, all that user
Josh Smith:input, where are the users spending their time and elevate
Josh Smith:those features to the top and maybe push them those other ones
Josh Smith:down so it's not so complicated and overwhelming to deal with.
Matt Waller:One of the things I'd like to talk to you about a
Matt Waller:couple others, but this concept of the Internet of Things. This
Matt Waller:is still a you know, it was really popular for a while, you
Matt Waller:don't hear about it as much anymore, but it's maybe more
Matt Waller:critical now than it used to be. Would you mind speaking to that
Matt Waller:a little bit?
Jonathan Sasse:Yeah. So you know, one of the things that's
Jonathan Sasse:interesting about Internet of Things, to your point for, you
Jonathan Sasse:know, five years ago, it was super buzzy term, you know, what
Jonathan Sasse:crypto and NFT's were maybe last year. And I think what we saw is
Jonathan Sasse:the difference there is Internet of Things today, we interact
Jonathan Sasse:every day, everything we touch is something's broadcasting
Jonathan Sasse:something somewhere, you know, from your vacuum cleaner to your
Jonathan Sasse:laundry machines to your refrigerator, whatever it is. Wi
Jonathan Sasse:Fi is ubiquitous, we're able to monitor these things, get alerts
Jonathan Sasse:and stuff. So it's been an interesting pivot in that time,
Jonathan Sasse:where the forecast of the Internet of Things becoming a
Jonathan Sasse:common everyday occurrence, this kind of happened. You know, we
Jonathan Sasse:connected 1000s of devices, whether we know it or not, you
Jonathan Sasse:know, throughout the day. And so it's shaping the way we live and
Jonathan Sasse:work and play in a way that it's become so ubiquitous now that we
Jonathan Sasse:may not even realize it. And so as we've worked with that, we've
Jonathan Sasse:enabled businesses who 10, 15 years ago, the tech wasn't there
Jonathan Sasse:to even try this. And so they weren't even inspired to pivot,
Jonathan Sasse:when the web revolution happened, when the mobile
Jonathan Sasse:revolution happened, they still didn't need to move, technology
Jonathan Sasse:still wasn't actually solving their key problems. And so when
Jonathan Sasse:you look at something like fleet rentals for like heavy
Jonathan Sasse:equipment, that's a business that's been on paper and phone
Jonathan Sasse:calls, and literally giant machines, you know, going off
Jonathan Sasse:into locations where they didn't know where they went or where
Jonathan Sasse:they were, or how they're being used. And that was a project we
Jonathan Sasse:worked on where you retrofit all these devices with the ability
Jonathan Sasse:to communicate. And now all of a sudden, I know where every piece
Jonathan Sasse:of equipment is, I know what state it's in, or you know, what
Jonathan Sasse:status it's in? Is it being used? How many hours is it being
Jonathan Sasse:used? You know, is it been returned on time? If I need to
Jonathan Sasse:go find it? Where is it, you know, so that completely changed
Jonathan Sasse:their business in a way that technology, you know, changes
Jonathan Sasse:over the previous 15 years, were kind of irrelevant to them. But
Jonathan Sasse:then it became, we can get rid of all this paper, we can get
Jonathan Sasse:rid of all this processing, we can find equipment in seconds
Jonathan Sasse:instead of maybe hours or days. And we're servicing the things
Jonathan Sasse:that actually need to be serviced the efficiencies
Jonathan Sasse:through the roof. It completely changed the trajectory of their
Jonathan Sasse:business. And that's where we're seeing, you know, on IoT, it's
Jonathan Sasse:either you have this massive inflection point for companies
Jonathan Sasse:that suddenly you know, logistics, shipping freight is
Jonathan Sasse:massive changes, but down to the smallest thing where I get an
Jonathan Sasse:alert on my phone, that my dryer is completed its cycle. So go
Jonathan Sasse:get it, like, okay, it's now it's not sitting there for till
Jonathan Sasse:tomorrow, because nobody remembered it was in there. And
Jonathan Sasse:we just start naturally in engaging with these things. When
Jonathan Sasse:we're like, oh, my car has an alert or my, you know, my
Jonathan Sasse:refrigerator tells me that the door was left open or whatever
Jonathan Sasse:it might be. And we don't really think of that as Internet of
Jonathan Sasse:Things. We just think of that that's just modern technology in
Jonathan Sasse:my world now.
Matt Waller:Good point, you know, I there's there's a place
Matt Waller:that they go on a regular basis that when you enter, you've got
Matt Waller:to pull out your wallet and show it the barcode, but it's not
Matt Waller:I've noticed lately, as I'm walking up to this building, it
Matt Waller:pops up. And so I just click on it. And I thought, wow, that is
Matt Waller:so nice.
Josh Smith:very handy.
Matt Waller:Yes. Now the fleet is an interesting topic too,
Matt Waller:because I read an article, it must have been 10 years ago, I
Matt Waller:don't remember, it was talking about one that one of the states
Matt Waller:in the United States, but they were talking about how many cars
Matt Waller:were in their fleet. And it talked about how many they
Matt Waller:didn't know where they were. And they really didn't know it at
Matt Waller:any given point in time where they were, which shocked me, you
Matt Waller:know, I thought wow, that's a huge amount of resources that is
Matt Waller:completely unaccounted for.
Jonathan Sasse:That's the glaring problem that gets solved
Jonathan Sasse:by that, right was that I mean, you think about just fleets in
Jonathan Sasse:general, whether it's the cars in California, or the trucks in
Jonathan Sasse:Wisconsin, or whatever it might be, is, you know, up until very
Jonathan Sasse:recently, that's how was for everybody who knows where they
Jonathan Sasse:are, you know, you might have to call a lot of people to figure
Jonathan Sasse:out where something is where today, you just pull up your map
Jonathan Sasse:and oh, there it is, like, I know exactly where that is,
Jonathan Sasse:every time.
Matt Waller:Well, the pandemic really pushed telehealth
Matt Waller:forward. And it still is moving forward. And I think it's going
Matt Waller:to keep growing in the in the country. Are you all engaged in
Matt Waller:that at all?
Josh Smith:Yeah, absolutely. We've got a variety of health
Josh Smith:care clients, one of which is innovator health, that has a
Josh Smith:very good telehealth platform that's used within the
Josh Smith:department defense, able to take compressed video and do you
Josh Smith:know, medical procedures out on the battlefield, or at high
Josh Smith:altitude with someone who's on the ground. So I think what
Josh Smith:we're seeing on that side of the house, I look forward to seeing
Josh Smith:it make its way over to the commercial side, because it's
Josh Smith:talk about time and time wasted. As far as, you know, lab results
Josh Smith:and go into a doctor's office and all these things can be done
Josh Smith:much, much faster. And then on the IoT side of the house, are
Josh Smith:vitals in our body, there's no reason that you know, blood
Josh Smith:pressure cuff once every six months, probably not giving you
Josh Smith:the most accurate reading on your health.
Matt Waller:Well you know know I have an Oura ring, the Oura
Matt Waller:ring, you know, captures so much data like it captures your
Matt Waller:average and resting heart rate, while you're sleeping, your
Matt Waller:heart rate variability, which is an important metric, your body
Matt Waller:temperature, your respiratory rate, you know, it keeps track
Matt Waller:of your activity so you know how many calories you're burning,
Matt Waller:the frequency of your your workouts, just all kinds of
Matt Waller:variables. And it also keeps track while you're sleeping,
Matt Waller:have your average oxygen saturation, your breathing
Matt Waller:regularity. And I thought, well, then you go into the doctor's
Matt Waller:office, once every year, whatever. And they take your
Matt Waller:blood pressure and weigh you and poke around on you and look in
Matt Waller:your ears and stuff. And I thought this is way more
Matt Waller:valuable than that. I mean, your blood pressure on one reading is
Matt Waller:tells you nothing. You think that the medical system would
Matt Waller:want to be taking this data as well and using it and maybe they
Matt Waller:do? I don't know.
Jonathan Sasse:I think that's coming. The other thing that's
Jonathan Sasse:interesting, I think that we're gonna see in the next we're
Jonathan Sasse:seeing it now, but certainly over the next few years become
Jonathan Sasse:more ubiquitous, is a lot of these tools are great at
Jonathan Sasse:tracking stuff, right? But to your point, you track your
Jonathan Sasse:sleep, you track your heart rate, you track all your
Jonathan Sasse:biorhythms all these things. But the pivot there is what do you
Jonathan Sasse:do with all that information? What does it mean? Right? So
Jonathan Sasse:being able to use some of these AI models and some of these
Jonathan Sasse:other learning tools, you know, these systems can now start to
Jonathan Sasse:be like, what's normal for you? And what's not normal for you?
Jonathan Sasse:And what should you do about that maybe in real time, right?
Jonathan Sasse:We talk, we go to the doctor once a year, and they give you
Jonathan Sasse:like, hey, you should lose weight, you should do this, and
Jonathan Sasse:you come back a year later, and they check your blood pressure
Jonathan Sasse:again, right. But now you have something that's checking 1000s
Jonathan Sasse:of things all the time. And you can start to learn, like this is
Jonathan Sasse:a normal thing. It might be abnormal for someone else, but
Jonathan Sasse:it's actually maybe normal for you. And these might be
Jonathan Sasse:indicators that something's up, maybe you're not sleeping well,
Jonathan Sasse:maybe you're not eating well, maybe you're not getting the
Jonathan Sasse:same exercise you did before, whatever it might be. But
Jonathan Sasse:starting to turn into more prescriptive types of things
Jonathan Sasse:instead of like, here's a report of last 60 days, do what you
Jonathan Sasse:will with this information. It might be we've been collecting
Jonathan Sasse:information over the last 60 days, you should do these things
Jonathan Sasse:in order to improve these other things. And I think that's where
Jonathan Sasse:the medical community will start to lean into that a lot more
Jonathan Sasse:heavily too as you start to connect to these devices to your
Jonathan Sasse:healthcare systems and things like this where now you do have
Jonathan Sasse:that I think we're mainly I think the legacy systems that
Jonathan Sasse:they have make it harder to adopt this technology quickly.
Jonathan Sasse:But I think everybody's looking at this to make sure that you
Jonathan Sasse:know a doctor can thoroughly monitor a patient through a
Jonathan Sasse:whole year, not just in that moment where they're checking
Jonathan Sasse:your temperature one day.
Matt Waller:That's encouraging to hear. So there's lots of
Matt Waller:companies you can go to, to have software developed. But to be
Matt Waller:successful, especially from a strategic perspective, and you
Matt Waller:all have obviously had lots of success, there's got to be
Matt Waller:something there that's giving you a competitive advantage. So,
Matt Waller:you know, in terms of, what do you do differently? How is your
Matt Waller:culture different? How's your experience different? Or how do
Matt Waller:those combined to give you a unique competitive advantage in
Matt Waller:the marketplace?
Josh Smith:I'll take the the culture piece of it. So I think
Josh Smith:our organization over the past probably 10 years, has evolved
Josh Smith:like everyone else, every other organization, but we lean
Josh Smith:heavily into empathy, as one of our core values, which is an
Josh Smith:extremely hard practice empathy and, and with each other, with
Josh Smith:our clients. And with that comes the follow ons of communication,
Josh Smith:accountability, and these, these other, you know, tenants that
Josh Smith:ultimately leads to empathy. And I think we've, we've got a team
Josh Smith:that practices that daily, with each other, and with our
Josh Smith:clients. And I think that that's the first part of this, I think
Josh Smith:that sets us apart.
Matt Waller:Interesting. Well, there's a book called creative
Matt Waller:confidence. And it was written by the founders of the D school
Matt Waller:at Stanford design school. And a key part of effective design is
Matt Waller:empathy. You know, really trying to understand, put yourself in
Matt Waller:the shoes of the customer in that case.
Jonathan Sasse:You know, a lot of companies focus on the wrong
Jonathan Sasse:things when they're building technology or using technology,
Jonathan Sasse:which is just, can I make it work? Not necessarily am I
Jonathan Sasse:making work the right way? Or even am I making it work for the
Jonathan Sasse:right people. And so invariably, what happens is, you end up with
Jonathan Sasse:a product that is not really built for anybody, it was just
Jonathan Sasse:built to do something. And so when we look at things, we're
Jonathan Sasse:always working with our clients to start there. What what do
Jonathan Sasse:your client why do your clients even hire you in the first
Jonathan Sasse:place? What do they expect from you? What are they trying to do?
Jonathan Sasse:And how can we make that possible? And so taking that
Jonathan Sasse:approach is very different than something like a dev shop. And
Jonathan Sasse:that term gets thrown around a lot. And there, there are dev
Jonathan Sasse:shops out there teams of engineers waiting for you to
Jonathan Sasse:call them and do work for them. But if you don't know what
Jonathan Sasse:you're building, having a team of engineers is not terribly
Jonathan Sasse:helpful, actually. And so, for us, we've built our organization
Jonathan Sasse:with, you know, leadership, who's been through the wringer
Jonathan Sasse:of startups and technology, and building and shaping things for
Jonathan Sasse:customers and knowing where some of the landmines are, and what's
Jonathan Sasse:really tricky. And also, how do you make sure you're listening
Jonathan Sasse:to your customers, and you're not just building you the thing
Jonathan Sasse:that you want, or the thing you think your business needs, but
Jonathan Sasse:the thing that your customer wants, and that they need. And
Jonathan Sasse:so, when we bring in a team, you know, we spend sometimes weeks,
Jonathan Sasse:sometimes months going through those cycles with customers,
Jonathan Sasse:making sure they understand what value do you bring to your
Jonathan Sasse:customer base, and to the people, you want to be your
Jonathan Sasse:customers.
Josh Smith:And those can be hard conversations, once we've
Josh Smith:exposed everything, talk to all the constituents of the clients,
Josh Smith:you know, their customers, their, you know, the people
Josh Smith:within the company, and, and sometimes think things aren't,
Josh Smith:as they thought they were. And their customers actually come to
Josh Smith:them for something totally different than they thought they
Jonathan Sasse:Yeah, And there's one question that I ask
Jonathan Sasse:were.
Jonathan Sasse:a lot, especially if we're, if we're at a crossroads somewhere,
Jonathan Sasse:which many of the customers we're working with are. And it
Jonathan Sasse:is kind of a tough question. But why does? What is your customers
Jonathan Sasse:even care that you exist? What what value do you really bring
Jonathan Sasse:in here? And that can be a very tough question for people to
Jonathan Sasse:face, especially when they've just been business as usual for
Jonathan Sasse:quite a while. And then you get to that point where like, why do
Jonathan Sasse:your customers care that you still have the products you have
Jonathan Sasse:or the services you have customer? I say, you're choosing
Jonathan Sasse:not to make a good experience for me. And so I'm going to
Jonathan Sasse:apply some judgment to that.
Matt Waller:What are you all seeing in terms of integration
Matt Waller:of current technology with generative AI tools? Are you
Matt Waller:seeing my sense is in talking to senior people at companies is
Matt Waller:many of them are still not, they wouldn't even know what I just
Matt Waller:said that that was possible. What are you seeing with that?
Jonathan Sasse:Well we're certainly seeing, I think the
Jonathan Sasse:point you bring up about training your own data, using
Jonathan Sasse:some kind of an AI tool is is a really positive direction
Jonathan Sasse:because you know, the source of truth of that information. One
Jonathan Sasse:of the things that's challenging with a lot of the tools we have
Jonathan Sasse:today, and a lot of the ones you described is the results you
Jonathan Sasse:get. It's hard to tell what level of accuracy it is? Or
Jonathan Sasse:even? Is it accurate at all? Or what was the source of the
Jonathan Sasse:information in the first place. And so you're casting a pretty
Jonathan Sasse:wide net, with also a lot of uncertainty of the result you
Jonathan Sasse:got, which could be totally wrong, or it could be totally
Jonathan Sasse:right, you don't know.
Matt Waller:But I mean, students are getting into this
Matt Waller:problem, because they trust it too much.
Jonathan Sasse:That's the interesting thing about it is,
Jonathan Sasse:we're at this infancy of this, everybody has their theories of
Jonathan Sasse:like, you know, we're going into, you know, Terminator days,
Jonathan Sasse:or this is going to change our lives for the good, or whatever
Jonathan Sasse:it may be. But I think that's, that's gonna be the one thing
Jonathan Sasse:that shifts a lot, I think, you know, in the coming year or more
Jonathan Sasse:is using these tools on datasets that we know to be good. And so
Jonathan Sasse:it'll get better at answering the question correctly, when
Jonathan Sasse:it's using a set of data that's known, and not just wherever it
Jonathan Sasse:might cobble some of these things together. And so, you
Jonathan Sasse:know, I think as you get, you know, certain industries, I
Jonathan Sasse:mean, we all have interactions with chatbots. And these things,
Jonathan Sasse:and a lot of them are pretty poor, those things could get
Jonathan Sasse:considerably better with the right set of learning and
Jonathan Sasse:training on that and get real useful feedback with complicated
Jonathan Sasse:questions. I think that's where we'll start to see some of the
Jonathan Sasse:early benefit, but then that internal use of to your point,
Jonathan Sasse:training on a set of known data that goes back maybe a long
Jonathan Sasse:time, and be able to mine and utilize that data in a way
Jonathan Sasse:through, you know, the same way we do today with Chat GPT, or
Jonathan Sasse:others, but getting responses back that you could rely on in a
Jonathan Sasse:much more credible way. And I think we might see some of that
Jonathan Sasse:where being more transparent in the results. It almost feels
Jonathan Sasse:sometimes, like, when you talk to somebody who doesn't really
Jonathan Sasse:know what they're talking about, and they just give you a
Jonathan Sasse:confident answer, and you're like, well, that's probably
Jonathan Sasse:true, that seems reasonable. And then you find out that it wasn't
Jonathan Sasse:at all
Matt Waller:Yeah,
Jonathan Sasse:that's how a lot of these chat tools feel the AI
Jonathan Sasse:tools feel like is it? It can't, it gave me a very confident,
Jonathan Sasse:plausible answer that if it in because I know very little about
Jonathan Sasse:the subject I was asking about, it seems believable. But it's
Jonathan Sasse:really difficult to check that in any way. And so you might use
Jonathan Sasse:that for inspiration for more research and be like, okay, I'm
Jonathan Sasse:gonna go learn and this is true, but not everybody's gonna do
Jonathan Sasse:that. And then that's the risk of kind of where we're at, like,
Jonathan Sasse:at this moment, I think.
Matt Waller:First of all, Josh and Jonathan, congratulations on
Matt Waller:the great success of Metova. And, you know, it's it's
Matt Waller:encouraging to have a company here in Northwest Arkansas
Matt Waller:that's doing business all over the place, not just in Arkansas,
Matt Waller:and doing well. So congratulations, and thank you
Matt Waller:for taking time to visit with me.
Jonathan Sasse:Thank you.
Josh Smith:Thanks for having us.
Matt Waller:On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of
Matt Waller:Business, I want to thank everyone for spending time with
Matt Waller:us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe
Matt Waller:by going to your favorite podcast service and searching.
