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- [00:00]
A
I have a three year old. When we bring her to a store now, it's so stimulating and they want to just run around and like, what's that? What's that? Can they grab things? Imagine now, like, the brief is, how do you recreate that for people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, where they walk into a store and they have that same joy a three year old has when they go into a grocery store? If you're not immediately walking into something or going on a website and you're like, ooh, what's that, what's that, what's that? I'm interested in this. I want to read that later. There's an issue.
- [00:25]
B
Today. I brought on John Semponia, the CEO and co founder of wondersauce, to talk about what it really takes to. To create a customer experience that people will fall in love with today and tomorrow.
- [00:36]
A
It's gonna be really important for brands to lean into what makes them unique and special and to kind of like triple down on that.
- [00:41]
B
If you're not thinking about your brand as almost like this luxury experience, you're probably gonna get lost in the muddle of everything else that's a little bit mediocre.
- [00:49]
A
The implications of what makes the business special can be kind of like sprinkled throughout the entire journey in a way where it feels really relevant in that moment.
- [00:57]
B
Do you think people crave some of that more analog experience now?
- [01:01]
A
You don't have to throw out the past to embrace the future. When there's a ton of noise in one direction, there's usually a massive opportunity in the other direction. Take what you know about SEO and throw it out. It's all gonna change. I think there's gonna be like two spectrums that start to play out. Ones that are like hyper, hyper efficient around ranking high within LLM results, one around being like, throw it all away. Let's make an experience for our customers. There's a lot of noise, there's a lot of tools, and if you chase every single one of them, you're going to waste a lot of time. You know, the way we've always done emerging technology at wondersauce is.
- [01:37]
B
John. Welcome to the podcast.
- [01:39]
A
Thanks for having me.
- [01:41]
B
I'm so excited to hear more about what you're doing at wondersauce. But before we dive in, I want our listeners to know the context. Could you tell us what is wondersauce?
- [01:50]
A
Wondersauce is a business acceleration agency. We help brands kind of overcome different stages of growth. Sometimes it's like literally getting to market for the first time. In other cases, it's scaling from 10 million to $100 million in revenue or even some stuff behind the scenes, like larger or operational issues that are preventing growth, like migrating and rebuilding an E commerce experience or a mobile and website or something like that, like larger infrastructure lifts. So it's a mix of different challenges, but it's all kind of tied to growth and it keeps things interesting.
- [02:27]
B
I love that that's your answer because it is so, like, that could mean anything. Like we, we do growth, we do business growth, we do business acceleration. Like, I just, I love that because it really does keep the door open for you on, oh, I'm interested in that, I'm interested in this. Oh, you know, in 10 years, growth looks different. So you guys keep getting to evolve with the times. And so with that, you're the CEO and the founder, right?
- [02:49]
A
John, co founder.
- [02:50]
B
Yeah, co founder. What Inspired you in 2011 to build Wondersauce?
- [02:54]
A
You know, spending the first few years of my career working at different, different agencies sort of got a good crash course into what it was like to service clients, to pitch projects, to deliver amazing work. And, you know, you start kind of developing a deep connection of point of view on a lot of the operational stuff, like, why are they doing it this way, why are they doing it that way? Or if we had a company, we would do it like this. And I think that kind of like paired with the. I met my business partner and we were both kind of like geeking out on just like the operational aspects of the agency world. And we were always like, yeah, one day we'll do it, one day we'll do it. And those conversations progressed aggressively over six happy hours after work. And then, you know, we, we ended up doing it, I think like less than a year later. And we were, that was 2011. We were like 26 and 27 and we didn't really know anything, which was awesome because you're super young and naive and you don't have to work every single decision you make through like a million de risking scenarios. Yeah. And you end up with like pure, quick decisions that are usually correct. And yeah, it was an amazing time and I wouldn't change it for the world.
- [04:12]
B
And even if they're not correct, you can pivot so quickly and easily. Whenever you're that young, that agile, you likely didn't have a family counting on your income or anything like that. I think some of the best entrepreneurship comes at that age range. Whenever you're kind of young, maybe a little bit inexperienced in the arena. But you've got a lot of ideas and a lot of passion to apply those ideas and a willingness to pivot and take risks that people who are well established just don't have. With that. It's been since 2011 that you guys launched this. How has it evolved? Because you've been now at the forefront of witnessing a lot of technology evolution and change. And as you shared at the beginning of this, you didn't exactly know what you guys were getting into. So how is like your vision for the company changed?
- [04:56]
A
Honestly, it's kind of remained pretty much the same. I think our point of view on what it means to be an agency and how to construct one has gone through different stages of popularity. And I think it's our vision now of being we are more full service. I think it's becoming important again. But it's funny, like, when we started Long, we launched the business, our mission statement was kind of like, we grew up with the Internet and the Internet grew up with us. The idea that we were of that generation where like, we remember like keyboard class and like elementary school and then there was like a computer with the Internet one day and then like begging our my. Our parents for AOL and like middle school, like Limewire and Napster and college pre and post Facebook and you know, our 20s where like the iPhone came out and the app economy and here we are with like AI and Web three and all that stuff. So it's like the Internet just changed as we grew up. And I wanted to create a company that was as fast as the culture of the Internet. So it wasn't like we need to do social media. It was like, no, like this is just a thing that exists that millions of people are on. So like your brand has to have a point of view and a presence here. So let us help you with that. E commerce is clearly important. We should understand those things. So it was never like decisions to expand our service offering because we were like hungry for revenue or anything like that. It was just stuff that all made sense together. And you know, I think now as the world gets, in my opinion, smaller and smaller and smaller as like a bunch of companies kind of control the Internet and control how people kind of use it. You need to really understand how paid media, owned properties and content all come together to ultimately inform a customer journey. So I think like, long story short, you know, we wanted to be full service from the start. We are today. It used to be not cool. I think it's more relevant now.
- [06:54]
B
What do you think? Makes wonder SaaS so unique is it this offering that you guys have this like full service perspective and that you're kind of willing to dive into anything?
- [07:01]
A
I think it's anything but. It's all tied to this idea of like, you know, two real paths around unlocking growth for your business. Usually revenue growth. That's what we're like, we're kind of there for or operational adjustments and change. But I think what really makes us unique is the fact that we've been super pragmatic from the start. Even like early on when we were winning like design awards and people were like, oh, they're a really cool design shop. Like that was all like smoke and mirrors to like the real bread and butter of the company, which was being hyper, hyper pragmatic around working with our clients to work backwards from business goals and ultimately achieve them. And that's what led to loyalty, it led to referrals and led to word of mouth. It wasn't the that our worth look great and that's part of it, but it was really around the idea of like sitting down and being, you know, way more, you know, aware of they're hiring us to change their business, not to just like develop a bunch of art or fancy things.
- [08:01]
B
Yeah, it's a totally different conversation too. Right. When you get into those strategy conversations, you're talking to them about, hey, what's this big picture outcome goal? And we are trying to map to that. And sometimes, hey, we came to you for social media or whatever it is we came to you for. Once I look at your goals and your strategy, I'm telling you, don't invest there, do invest here. Right. So like you become a way more full service partner in that way whenever you're thinking strategically from the beginning versus just like we're a social media company and that's all we do or we do e commerce rebrands and that's all we do. So I think that's a very cool way to, to map out your business for sure. What have been some of the biggest challenges you've seen companies have? Because it is sort of a unique way for you to kind of come in and offer advice and services. And not every business is ready for that. So like whenever you start having that conversation with them, what are you seeing? Like the biggest challenges be?
- [08:52]
A
Well, you kind of hit on it just now. And this isn't like a knock on any business. It really is just the value of an outside party that understands what you're going through. And I think that we get often brands Coming to us with a brief or an rfp, whether it's, we need to reposition the company, we need new social, we need a new website, we need a new set of campaigns. And you, you start to like, distill the brief, understand the business, and you're like, all right, you really don't need a new social media strategy. You're lacking like an actionable brand book that, like, go gets out of that 400 page, beautifully designed brand strategy book and into, like, real world applications. Like, how are we relevant in 7 seconds on TikTok? What are we doing Monday through Friday on our stories on Instagram? People seem to really, like, come to our site and spend a ton of time on our product detail pages because our products are beautiful. X, Y and Z. How do we, like, invest more into that and make the stickiness of that page that much more special? How can we, like, take the learnings there and apply it to a homepage or something else? It's like you, you get told something, but when you actually, like, learn more about it and understand it, like, the implications of what makes the business special can be kind of like sprinkled throughout the entire journey in a way where it feels really relevant in that moment. And then also it's like you start to see the negative stuff and the not so great things. And it's like, how do we kind of clean that up and turn those, those negative experiences people may be having into a positive and make it a brand strength? So for, for me, it's really like providing an outside perspective and like a, an objective sounding board to help people get out of their own headspace. Because it's really tough. I mean, I have it all the time for, for Wonder Sauce, we, you know, we hired an outside consultant to help with like, our own positioning because, you know, what I think and say sometimes doesn't translate to our target customer. So it's like, get out of your own head.
- [10:52]
B
Yeah, that is such a good point. I mean, I see this all the time. We work with really large enterprise companies and I feel like there is such a big disconnect between, like, what they believe and see and like the little, the echo chamber that we often live in whenever we're building something and then what people actually want and maybe what they actually wanted five years ago when you were delivering XYZ thing, that it matched. But now there's a mismatch. And the only way you can see that is if you really can step out and look at it from this higher level or have someone, a Third party come in and be like, hey, I'm tearing this apart bit by bit and I'm telling you, these are the things that matter. John, I know that we talked a little in our prep call about AI and I kind of want to start there since it's been such a hot topic in almost every single episode. I can't think of a single episode. I haven't talked about it yet. And so with this discussion we've been having around experience and how to show up as a large enterprise or medium sized enterprise with your customers properly, how are you seeing first off, just customer behavior and expectation changing now that AI has sort of entered the chat as.
- [12:00]
A
Someone might say, it's like the biggest consumer experience change since probably the Internet. Obviously we had big moments between now and then, but I think that at a high level chat based interfaces are way more common. I think like that whole like command line look and feel that you're seeing across, you know, the big LLMs right now where it's conversational and you're getting hyper personalized results, that's going to be a thing that I really believe carries out across digital products. So apps, e commerce experiences, websites, you know, we're, we're going to move out of that. I think that age we were in that was very grid based, very polished, very best practice, right? And that's, that's totally normal. Like you spend 15 years figuring out the best way of configuring, you know, a homepage, a pdp, a search results page, a filter. Those are, it's good to have standards but you know, we're at like peak standards right now. And I feel like every single experience looks and feels very familiar and the same and it's hard for a brand to actually stand out. So I think you're going to see a kind of like two things, right? You're going to have brands that are most likely like hyper, hyper focused on whatever the new version of search is going to be. So making sure that the content they create, the web experiences they create are there to serve Google or OpenAI or whomever is going to be scraping the web and basically serving up results within that viewport. So you know, take what you know about SEO and throw it out. It's all going to change. You know, right now we're seeing the early days of that where it's like brands that have a lot of engagement on content. You're seeing like rent, rent really high and stuff like that, that, that's ranking really high within results that's going to probably change five times in the next 12 months. And then, you know, the other side of the coin is like brands that are like, we get that, we're aware of that, but like, what if we create our own properties as a true experience and they almost like throw out the idea of like not going to say usability, but like they're making it one of those experiences where it's like, you may not come to our website, you know, six times a week, you may only come twice a year. But like we want it to feel like a movie or like a really interesting thing. You can lean into and have some fun and you can take the power of AI and everything else. We have to create more of an experiential point of view around your app or your, or your website. So I think there's going to be like kind of two spectrums that start to play out. Ones that are like hyper, hyper efficient around ranking high within LLM results, one around being like, throw it all away. Let's make an experience for our customers. And there's no right or wrong answer and you can probably do both. But long story short, I think it's going to be like back to experimentation again because there are no standards yet, which is really fun.
- [14:53]
B
Yeah. What's interesting about what you're sharing is even in both of those examples, it's sort of like a, it's a zero click future as people keep saying, where I could just be engaging with your brand exclusively through this other tool like ChatGPT and I'm never actually appearing, going to your website. I mean with operator now, like I can just have you go buy the thing for me. I don't even need to be on your website. So it is sort of an interesting challenge, like how do you create a memorable brand experience that people like and that they kind of associate some sort of emotional connection with. So that way they come back if you're not even controlling the frame in which they're operating. Like, how do you think about that challenge?
- [15:33]
A
I still think there's like a big opportunity on the like the own side of things, like the, the, your own properties. You could, you could control that. I think that it's going to be really important for brands to lean into what makes them unique and special and kind of like triple down on that. If you're shopping for something and you want to really learn about what makes this product unique and its benefits, you need to go out of your way to figure out like, how do you encapsulate that in a way where you can't just get bucketed with three or four other like, like for like comparison products within, you know, like Gemini results OR, or, or OpenAI results. So it's going to be twofold, I think, like, there are going to be like, really great ways to just kind of like shop quickly across product category or across a range of different, you know, competitors and do it all within an LLM. And the viewport's going to be like, really interesting. You can kind of whittle things down by Vegas conversation. And then I think there's also going to be the idea of like having a bit more of an experience. And I think you're going to start seeing this in retail as well. Like you're, you're already seeing brands like treating retail experiences as a bit more of like a we don't need you here all the time, but when you're here, we want it to be special, something that's more differentiated than just like, you know, going to our website. And then you're seeing brands that are kind of stuck in the like the 90s or the early 2000s where you go into retail and it's static and you're like, well, what am I getting here that I'm not getting on your site? Other than I get free returns on your site too, so I really didn't need to walk here or drive here. So yeah, I think it's a matter of like identifying the new swim lanes and figuring out, you know, what makes sense for your business.
- [17:07]
B
Yeah, I think the in real life experience is going to matter a lot more. Like what, what experience do I feel whenever I walk into a store? Because I am doing everything else online, right? Like I get all my groceries delivered to my door. I'm not going to go to the grocery store anym and get that done. Most of my clothes I'm ordering from Amazon or this like random item I need for my, my toddler. Like all that stuff is getting done that way. The only time I go into a store now is because I want to and there's like an experience I want to have there or how I feel when I'm there. So I, I totally echo you on that. That it's like that experience of what can I create in person is going to matter a lot more or on a website than what, than what we currently have been dealing with. You know, like the efficiency won't matter anymore because the efficiency is just table stakes. Like I go into H E B and I efficiently can go get my stuff and put it in my cart. But why would I do that when I have Instacart that can go do that for me? So I think it is like an interesting challenge that if you're not thinking about your brand as almost like this luxury experience that you're probably going to get lost in the muddle of everything else. That's a little bit mediocre.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah, I mean think about like I have a, I have a three year old, same. It's amazing. Like it's a great age. They're like, they really are finding, like they're finding themselves and like they're learning about so many things in real time about like attachment, what's fun, what's not fun, responsibilities, all that stuff. It's really fun to watch and I think ironically when we bring her to a store now, like the, like the enlightenment and like how they think it's so fun, like it's so stimulating and they want to just run around and like what's that, what's that? Can they grab things? And it's like imagine now like the brief is how do you recreate that for people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, where they walk into a store and they have that same kind of like joy of a three year old has when they go into a grocery store. And there are ways of evoking that, but if you're not immediately walking into something or going on a website and you're like, what's that, what's that, what's that? I'm interested in this, I want to read that later. There's an issue and I think that like it's going to be really important for brands to dig deeper to unlock levels of value and entertainment that don't exist today because of the standardization of the web. Because if you want the standardization of the web, the web just leveled up. You can get it over here. So if you want to stand, if you want to stand on your own and have something that's ownable, an ownable brand experience which people are still going to want, you're going to have to ask really, really deep, interesting questions to get to a different level. But I love the example of watching my 3 year old daughter walk around a mundane grocery store and how she thinks it's the best thing ever.
- [19:39]
B
I have a three year old son, so I was at the park this weekend and just watching him go around and engage and play in the park and the playground and I was thinking about how the future we get to make for humanity is one where as an adult the world feels like it's a playground for me and it gets to be fun and engaging. And that's the only kind of experience I want to have out in the world now is like this thing that's interesting. I feel like that even when I go to a doctor's office now, I'm like, there's this boring, stodgy, you know, terrible lighting doctor's office. Or I could choose this one that's like upscale and they got tea and coffee and the prices are the same that I'd pay at either one of these. Which one am I going to choose? It's always going to be the one that makes me feel more special or like I'm going to have more fun there. You've talked a bit about being anti tech and anti Internet in some ways and I know we just touched on that a little bit with like how important having this human experience is. But could you tell me what does it mean to you to be anti tech or anti Internet whenever you say that? What do you mean?
- [20:36]
A
I'm not anti tech or anti. I love the Internet and I love technology. It's more about like a balance of understanding that there's always like the cool stuff in the opposite direction. So when everyone is going down this path of like AI and hyper efficiency and everything connected and becoming easier and etc. There's going to be a group of people that do something so analog that is so cool and so interesting and everyone's talking about it. I'm just always aware that like, when there's a ton of noise in one direction, there's usually a massive opportunity in the other direction. So I just like to encourage our team and our brand partners to kind of like live in the real world and like, if you're looking for inspiration for the next campaign or the next idea, like, look up, like there's stuff in big cities, in the suburbs, in nature that could lead to something really interesting and fun. And it doesn't necessarily have to be like hyper, hyper focused on AI or anything like that. It could be like, I don't know, making a magazine and going deep into like the most analog thing ever. So I just like to kind of encourage people that like, you don't have to throw out the past to embrace the future. And it's just, you know, it's how I live. Like my, you know, personally, like, you need, you need balance and you need, you need to be fully offline sometimes.
- [22:04]
B
Do you think people crave some of that more analog experience? Now I feel like I've started to see A trend of that 100%.
- [22:12]
A
I mean this is already happening and I think it's just not, it hasn't reached full, full critical mass yet. But like there are going to be businesses that pop up where you know, you're paying a premium for like really like well written, human written substacks or that already exists. But like it's going to be one of those things. There's like a validation layer where it's like this is written by a person. Um, you're going to pay for that. You're already seeing at concerts like the, the cell phone lockers and you know, you're, you're checking your, you're checking your cell phone in and you're, you're like offline. Like that's going to be a thing I guarantee at like restaurants and at, you know, stuff where people need to be present. And I'm all, I'm all for it. So there's a ton of, I think opportunity right now to kind of lean into something that's analog or offline that enhances your in real life experience. And that could be something that is a piece of entertainment in and of itself. Whether it's like a movie or an event or a piece of writing or simply just enhances something. You're going to like this locker example. I love it. I think it's just like being present for a concert or for a show. I think it's, it's awesome. So yeah, I think that's going to be like, like a very big trend over the next few years.
- [23:29]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Have you had personally any experiences like that that you were like, oh, this is a little bit of something that's kind of from an older time. But I actually really loved this and enjoyed it because I actually just did that at a concert. I had my phone put away and like for three days it was like, it was a whole festival and I was like, I'm just not on my phone. And I felt so present and so like ready for what was to come. And I felt so rejuvenated afterwards taking that bit of a break. And it's interesting because you're not taking a complete break from tech. I'm not like out in the woods without any technology. Like clearly all of this thing that made my concert or the festival even possible is all technology. But yeah, it's super interesting. Have you had any experiences like that yourself?
- [24:10]
A
It's more about like being aware of things. So I feel like when I'm watching a show or a movie, it's gotten so Bad. Where I'm always, like, on my phone, too, and then I'm sort of like half paying attention. And now I'm like. Some of these shows, like, they do it really well where, like, they. I think they assume the user is doing that and they make the show, like, very pleasant for second screen experiences where. And I'm like, all right, we're. Now, we're like, we're watching, like, watered down content. That's assuming this. So part of me is, like, making a conscious decision to, like, leave your phone at home if you're going to see, like, the F1 movie in theaters. Like, leave your phone at home. No, don't let it even get in the way.
- [24:50]
B
How will I drive there, John? How will I drive there? I don't know how to get to the theater. I need my Google Maps.
- [24:57]
A
I know. Leave it in the car then. But I. I think, like, you know, even just walking into town and leaving your phone at home when you're going to dinner. But, like, things where you're a lot. You're. You're allowing yourself to be more present to something that I'm just, like, more and more aware of. And I'm guilty of, like, not doing. I need to do it more or I'm going to see Oasis in a few weeks in Chicago and, like, if it permits, like, either myself or my wife, like, leave our phone in the, in the hotel and just, like, go experience the show like it was 1995 and we're watching them, you know, for the first time in America. Like, let's. Let's do it.
- [25:36]
B
Like, yeah, yeah. And I think from like, a personal standpoint, like, I can understand that as a human on Earth, that, like, okay, so some of these things, it's nice to take a break from, but I think as a business, we do get so wrapped up in new technology. Use it constantly. If you're not using AI in this new app, then what are you doing? So it's really hard to oscillate between the pendulum swinging from one thing to the other with these businesses. So what advice would you have to a business that's like, hey, John, I love this idea of going analog a little bit. How do I do that? When would I actually apply that?
- [26:09]
A
Well, there's a few things, I think with AI, the amount of fomo, people are getting around not knowing something. I think you have to almost train yourself that it's okay and to take a beat before you invest five hours or five weeks into learning the thing of the moment. I've Seen this play out a few times in different forms, maybe not as big as this one, but there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of tools, and if you chase every single one of them, you're going to waste a lot of time. You know, the way we've always done emerging technology at wondersauce is, you know, we wait until something is relevant for a large group of people and when we think it has staying power, we invest in it. And I think you have to be a little bit, you have to treat it a little bit differently for AI because it is moving so fast, but it's not feasible for you to be an expert on every single tool. So you're seeing these things where it's like you could string together three or four different AI video software tools to create a spot or a three minute video or something like that. And you have your whole workflow established and you spent months building your workflow and then like, you know, Google releases like Veo or something and you're like, oh, well, that doesn't really matter anymore. So like, but maybe invest in that because like Google is Google and they're going to keep investing in it. So like, that idea is probably not going away anytime soon. So like, place some time there. So I like to be aware of like the bets we're making on like, what has staying power versus chasing every single like doodad that comes out. Because if you do that, you'll just end up, there's just not enough time. And I don't think the payoff is that. Is that, is that high? So trying to like prioritize where your time is best spent, when everything is emerging and everything is new and shiny.
- [27:55]
B
Yeah. How do you, but how do you do? Like, it's just, it's so hard to do that because I think there's a huge part of me that wants to say you gotta keep trying out new technologies, like, you gotta keep trying them out. And I think the person, like the example you've given of like, oh, I made this AI video tool, like the actual act of doing that might've taught you a lot about how AI works and how to prompt it. So there is a lot of lessons you can still learn even if you're not gonna end up using that thing. But I do, yeah, like, personally, I can make that investment in time a little bit and then pivot quickly. But I see from your perspective, like, was it for a business, like to actually invest in a bunch of new technologies and then, sorry, a month later this other Tool just does it on its own. It's such a tricky place to be in because I also see the opposite of that. Where I've seen businesses now, I've talked to them that are not investing at all in any of these new AI tools and I'm like, okay, what, what are you doing? Like that doesn't make sense, right? So there is this, like, I wish I could give the prescription to our audience, like this is the perfect in between of how to do both of these things. Like not over invest too quickly, but also not under invest.
- [28:58]
A
Well, think about the use cases that matter to your business. Like I think that the prioritization is like what is keeping you or your team up at night and what are you spending the most time on? And if those tasks are like, I don't know, video editing or copywriting for social or brief writing or whatever, like what are the tools that are really good at that and invest in the time. I also, like, I agree with you the point around like building that workflow and diving into the unknown, that's really valuable. Like regardless of how long the staying power is for whatever you built or the tool you've decided to adopt. I think that for AI, if you haven't yet dove into something that you had no idea about, watch some Demos, watch some YouTube videos and set something up, you're behind, you have to do that. I don't care if it's the easiest use case in ChatGPT or building your own custom GPT or something like that, but like you need to figure that out and do it right now. But once you do that a few times and you figure out like, and you, you know, oh, I figured out midjourney, I figured out veo, I figured out this and that. Once you do it a few times and you get like comfortable like learning a piece of software for the first time, even if you're not a full on expert, I feel like that's a pretty good base. Like you, you can now like, you can wait and see what's coming out. And I think that like when the big technology players make investments into certain things, you should pay attention, you should listen. And I'm not saying you have to like only listen to what the big five or six companies say and do. But like they matter. And you know, fortunately or unfortunately, like you have to like spend time learning what they're doing because it's going to impact you. And yes, there's always room to dabble in smaller pieces of software and things that are, that may get acquired by one of those companies or become one of those companies one day. But I do think that like the, the act of like starting from zero, learning something, getting comfortable, getting some form of output is very, very valuable. But tie it to the use cases that matter for your business. Don't go learn something completely random. That is cool you learned a new skill, but like gonna impact your business today. No, because you just learned something that you don't do. So maybe prioritize something that's gonna actually make your work better, your team better.
- [31:10]
B
I also think people underestimate how hard it is to automate or use AI for some of the most mundane tasks. Like I was, we were talking to the CTO at Bright Spot and he made this point that like if we were to try to automate the like vacuuming so I can go vacuum this thing up really quickly and easily, but to like have my Roomba come and do it, I have to like set up everything, make sure that it doesn't hit and get stuck in a nook. Oh, that thing on the ground, I know it won't be able to suck that up, so I need to like actually take care of that manually. Like, there's a lot of things that are very mundane that are actually very difficult to automate. And I've seen this in my own workflows for our production process where I'm like, this thing is, it is pretty repetitive and it's pretty mundane. It's very hands on. But it's actually really hard to like use AI or use these tools to automate it. So it's like finding the balance between something that you can actually execute on. You don't get overhyped with like, oh, I want to do this thing, but I can't. So you have to find the thing that can actually be done, but then also matches with your business priorities. So it's definitely like a weird area right now that it's really hard to like. I think there's a lot of people that are over thinking that AI can do more than it actually can.
- [32:15]
A
100 like, I don't know about you, but I, I ping pong every day with like, oh my God, this is the most incredible stuff I've ever seen. And I'm not gonna have a job in six months to being like, literally, is this all noise? This is horrible. Like none of this is working. Like, I built the GPT. Like I built a couple GPTs like a few weeks ago for the team and two of them were amazing and they worked great. And then I Built one. It was like John pt. It was like, basically I dumped, like, we've all done. I dumped a ton of my writing into it. And I was like, for consistent tone of voice and quick editing, right? I was like, for emails, for LinkedIn posts, like, let's just see how it goes. And not to generate, not to generate. Net new posts or like, ideas. Literally, I'll throw in ideas that I have, my original thoughts and I want to see the output. And the output was just so bad based on, like, my writing. And I was like, okay, let's. I had, I had like programmed into the GPT a bunch of like, rules. And I stripped all the rules out of it. And I said, and I kept on saying, like, don't use any EM dashes and stop with the corny metaphors.
- [33:20]
B
So difficult.
- [33:20]
A
Like, the horrible metaphors are the worst. Like, the EM dash was like V1, where I'm like, yeah, there's too many EM dashes everywhere. Stop. And then like the metaphors, I'm like, God, like, this is horrible. So I was like, everything I said, forget about it. You have two missions. Don't use any EM dashes and don't use any AI slop metaphors. Are you clear? Yes, clear. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Now let's start. Okay, here's a post about customer success in this. What do you think? Edit it for me. And it's like, boom, right back to the metaphors and the, and the EM dashes. And I was like, reference the rules. What did you do wrong? Oh, it looks like I used an EM dash. And I'm like, this is comical. I'm like, yeah, I'll just vacuum. I'll just take. Yeah, I have my vacuum. There's a pile of dirt right there. I'm just going to vacuum it up myself. Yeah, I will write this.
- [34:08]
B
Yep. Yeah. Oh, my God. I know. I. That, that whole story I've literally lived out, I think once a week where I'm trying to like, get something done. And I'm like, wait, why am I doing this when I could just do it myself and it would be done in 10 minutes versus me spending two hours trying to build this GPT to do it for me. Yeah, I know. I get sucked into. What about the ones you had success with?
- [34:29]
A
What were those More transactional stuff, right? Like taking like years and years and years of like, lower funnel ad copy CTA that we've found success with and basically like throwing that into a GPT and then basically, like having like cross category expertise around that where you know, how does it change for food and beverage or CPG or something else, right? And then saying like, okay, now let's reference like the best calls to action of the last 50 years of advertising. Find stuff, stuff for me and then like go through it and like weighting them at different, different levels and then basically saying like when you're writing calls to action, like referencing that and seeing the amount of options it gives you right away that are really strong. We're not talking about like brand platform stuff, we're talking about like, how do you get someone to click this button or to like learn more, read here or whatever. So like things like that it's amazing for. And it also, it just speeds things up. And then you tie that into like, you know, a platform that's going to be doing like DCO for like, you know, swapping in, you know, art and copy for, you know, display or something like that. You're cooking like it works. Or the idea of like agenda building and deck creation, right?
- [35:40]
B
Yeah. Oh yeah.
- [35:40]
A
For me, like I always used to teach strategists that like before we get into slides, I want to see a Word document where it's single spaced, sorry, single space writing where when you double space, it's a new slide and I just want to read the headlines of the slide, the main takeaway. And I want to be able to read through, you know, 20 double spaced lines of copy and get the vibe for what you're trying to present back to me. And I want you to present it back to me. I don't need graphs, I don't need sub copy, I don't need anything. I just need your talk track. And if you're good enough to present without any of that, you know, your subject matter and you're good at what you do. And for me, like I can load decks in five minutes. I've been doing it for, for, for 20 years where I could basically I, I, what I do is, what I have been doing is I, I talk into my notes and I'll write a deck by just doing that. And now I can do the same thing by talking into something like an LLM and it'll spit out like it's really well written, it'll spit it out for me and I'll basically like give it to someone. I'm like, here's what I'm thinking for this like this flow and it's literally me like instead of talking to notes, it's talking into ChatGPT or Gemini and it's spitting out my words not, not like random slop. My words organized and then I'm like, what am I missing? Where is it weak? Oh, you're, you're missing this. And that's like really, really strong where the idea of, like, create. Because all you're doing when you're creating a deck is you're creating an argument. You're trying to be persuasive. You know, I always use situation complication, question, answer, which is like, derived from Aristotle's points of persuasion. It's a deck flow to get people to, to persuade people to, like, take action. So, like, if you know what you're doing, you can get output so fast. But yeah, you have to know what you're doing. You have to feed it stuff. Or then it's just, you know, slop, which is, yeah, you know, not good.
- [37:24]
B
And I still think we're in this era of like, having to fill in, fill, fill, fill out the painful moments. Right. Like, I remember whenever I was first using Google and I. The things I would Google, like, it's embarrassing, John, like the way that I would prompt Google to find stuff for me. Like, just. And then you realize, oh, if I say it this way or if I say it that way, I'll get what I want. Right. And so I think we're just still in this awkward, like, learning how to search phase with GBT of, oh, this prompt can do that. Or this is how it's like, understanding how to prompt it is one of the most foundational skills and where I've seen a lot of. We talk to a lot of leaders about how to get your team ready for AI. And a lot of people talk about just needing to understand how to prompt as like the first thing. But the only way you get there is if you do it wrong a whole bunch of times before you figure out how to get it done. Right. Right. And so, like with your team are. How big is your team now, John? I haven't even asked you.
- [38:18]
A
We're about a hundred people.
- [38:19]
B
Okay, A hundred people. So how are you getting them ready for like, this, this future where like you're going to be using GPT or LLMs or any kind of, you name it tool to like, help you build something? How are you helping them get ready or are they just organically learning it?
- [38:35]
A
Well, they're learning organically, but we are also doing training. So we have. And the trainings are led by people on our team. I really believe that like your leadership team or people that are just happen to be great at it, have to take the Responsibility to train and to learn. Because the way we're all going to get better at wondersauce or any organization is when the majority of the individuals are using the technology and they're learning together. And that's, it's going to, it's going to continuously raise the levels. So what we're doing is every two weeks we're basically doing these little summits. I believe that the future for an agency is going to be a lot of just like T shaped individuals. You're going to have your skill but you're going to have to learn a bunch of other skills. The first thing we did a few weeks ago was it was all around like here's how you do like research and generate insights and can tie that to some form of a brief really quickly. And I don't care if you're a developer, designer, strategist, producer, whatever, everyone went through a one hour kind of like presentation and there's going to be a follow up where we're not quizzing you but we're expecting you to like level up and have a better understanding of using these tools we've given you. So that was the first one. The next one is going to be like a little bit more niche, a little bit more for specific team members because I don't think everyone needs to learn this but like it's going to be open for the whole company to learn. We're going to be doing deep dives into short form video creation. So we're going to, every two weeks is going to be a different thing that's relevant to our business. With the idea that like fast forward six months and you know, eight or nine of these trainings, our collective level should rise. And I want to see on slack and on conversations within people, on calls and everything, I want them to all share the better way of prompting how they used it to get better results and I want them to geek out together and that's how we'll get better as a group. It's not going to be like you know, joining a lecture or paying for you know, some, some training. I mean there's no way anyone's that much better than you are right now.
- [40:31]
B
If you put it's changing so fast. So like if you invest in some sort of training person to come in right now, in six months that won't matter. So being able to do it consistently over time and have like collective, your collective group all experimenting at once, you're going to be able to find what works way faster than if you. John, as the Leader, CEO are doing everything and then trying to like trickle down the information to your team.
- [40:55]
A
There's no way. Yeah, there's also like, I always say this, there's levels to it, right? Like, like the democratization of everything, which is AI's promise.
- [41:03]
B
I guess that's been the promise of the Internet, but yes.
- [41:07]
A
Yeah. And it's kind of like, it's like, okay, cool. So like you're going to say that this no code, this no code technology is going to replace every single developer. Let's see about that. So you're going to tell me that like a developer with a computer science degree doesn't still have an advantage? I think they do. A writer who has an English degree, who spent 20 years writing, five years writing, etc. Doesn't have an advantage. I think they do. Someone with a great graphic design background from Parsons or something. They still have an advantage. Just because everyone can make things doesn't mean practitioners don't have advantages. So I want to see what the person with formal training of the arts can do with this stuff. And that's where I think, like, if you put the time in and you go deep onto specific topics, like you can get the output to be wild and really interesting versus just like elementary use cases of, you know, what I would do with it, you know, it's not going to be as interesting as what an engineer would do or a designer, and maybe I'll get there.
- [42:11]
B
But it all comes back to, I think the prompting problem. Like the engineer and designer know what to ask of it, whereas you, having not that background, may not know even what to ask. It's like you have to ask the right questions, you have to think about the right prompting. And I think that's kind of the future of education is like you may not need to know how to do the hands on. Like I used to go to school for engineering. It's like 3D modeling. I may not need to know exactly how to do that, but I need to understand how it works, how the engineering behind it works. So that way I can prompt the tool because eventually it'll just be, I write in a chat and it makes the model of whatever I want. But I can't get to that point unless I really do have a foundational understanding. I don't think education is dead or having this background is dead by any means. I think it will inform people. But in the meantime, we definitely have a lot of messaging out there that's saying all these people's jobs are going to be lost and all this. And yes, the economy is going to change and jobs are going to shift and things are going to be in flow, but at the same time, those skills are still going to be inherently valuable.
- [43:07]
A
I agree.
- [43:08]
B
I had a question for you that I thought would be kind of funny, but now you've already kind of answered it, which is, what are your thoughts about vibe coding?
- [43:16]
A
Oh, man, don't even get me started on that. It's. It's so cringe.
- [43:22]
B
That's your answer? It's so cringe.
- [43:24]
A
It's so cringe. Honestly, I always see these posts of like, this is my vibe coding stack. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, do we have to talk about everything? Like, there's no way it's that cool. I'm like, yeah, doing something similar. And I've automated three things that, like, how many, like, I question, like, how many emails are you getting? Like, like, like, like, what are, what are you doing where you get this many, this many emails where you have to automate all this stuff and then rewrite all these. Have these emails, auto drafts and everything like that. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, if, if you're really that busy, you should be able to hire like an army of people to work for you. What's going on?
- [44:02]
B
It.
- [44:03]
A
It doesn't add up. And, and I, look, I'm being a little facetious. Like, I get it, there's value there, but like, there's no way that like 90% of the people that are talking about this stuff actually use it the way they're saying they use it. I call BS on it.
- [44:17]
B
Oh, for sure, for sure. I mean, I just, I think it's just LinkedIn post copy is all it is. Like, I don't know if you actually built that tool or if you even need that tool. That's funny. Yeah, I know. I mean, I think about that with our team, we, you know, I'd rather hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines that I know is going to get stuff done correctly on time than try to, like, I don't know, build this AI agent that's going to take weeks for me to figure out how to even build it properly. Going back to our vacuum problem, I mean, I think that some of this stuff is just gonna make more sense to keep hiring out to people versus, like, I vibe coded this thing that's unnecessary and not needed.
- [44:54]
A
Yeah, I wrote this, Like, I'm not gonna post it on the Internet, but I wrote like a vibe coding, like a, kind of like a tongue in Cheek thing. And it was like listing out all these use cases that I was using it for. And I was like, the results. My business is running like shit. But at least the dashboards are awesome to look at.
- [45:16]
B
They're not pulling in any real data, but they look nice.
- [45:21]
A
Look, it's good. And I encourage people to dive in and get uncomfortable and set their stuff up. There's no harm in it, right? It's all good learning.
- [45:31]
B
Yeah. Well, I kind of want to bring our conversation back around a little bit to experience. You know, our show is all about customer experience, so kind of bringing it back to, you know, we've got all these trends that are playing out now. And as a user of these tools and technologies and as a customer and as a person in business that's using these like, it is hard to figure out what should I be paying attention to, what trends matter, which ones don't? So I would be curious to hear from you, like, what trends are you betting on? Besides some of the ones we've already talked about, are there any others that you're like, this thing is the future and this is like, I, I bet my career on it, or I'm betting at least the next 12 months on it.
- [46:11]
A
I don't know if I have anything that hot, but I think this idea that like a resurgence of experience in digital product is something that I'm, I'm super passionate about because it used to be really fun to design for the Internet like 15 years ago, 10 years ago. I remember going into client meetings and we'd be presenting like a homepage for something and we would present this like huge image and it was beautiful and like large type and a big image. And I remember clients being like, we can't have this. There's nothing above the fold. How are people going to know what to do? And we're like, they scroll. Like scrolling's so intuitive. You just scroll. And we'd be like, go bend the tv. There's no fold. This isn't a newspaper. And now it's like 10, 15 years later. You'd be hard pressed to find a website that doesn't have the huge image. So I feel like we've been like web standards to death over the last 10, 15 years, where everything is just looking the same and you can build, you could buy a template and launch a website in two minutes and it's like, whatever, it's fine. And I think that like, with all the power that AI is introducing, I think that. And also just the fact that everyone's Just using phones, I think that you're going to start to see really cool digital product again that is truly personalized. And I always feel like the dream has always been like, we want personalized experiences. That's been the promise forever. And we, we've always gotten like pretty close to delivering against that. When I say we, I mean like the, the, the.
- [47:44]
B
The world.
- [47:44]
A
Culture. The world.
- [47:45]
B
Yeah.
- [47:46]
A
And I really think we're going to be able to get that now where like no two interfaces are going to be the same because like what you find relevant on this product, Lacy, is different than what John finds relevant. And we're, we're going to be on the same brand and thing and it's going to be serving up totally different brand experiences. So I really think like there's going to be like one stream around, like the further and further and deeper and deeper homogenization of everything and there's going to be like the hyper weird digital art stuff. It's going to feel and launch a bunch of new trends that are going to be very cool and fun to explore. So I'm like really, really, really excited for that. And then I'm also like, honestly, I think that like, as we get more and more comfortable with like building things quicker and it not taking as many hours as many people to do things, you're going to have a lot of time to do really fun, strategic work that should unlock a lot of value for yourself, your team and your clients. So I almost think like having honest conversations with your clients and your team members around like high value, low value and splitting it and knowing that like it's okay to like show your cards and be transparent and say like, this work used to take X amount of time, now it's taking this much time and the work is going to be just as good and we'll be able to produce much more. But we're going to spend way more time doing this stuff because it's going to provide a lot more value for your customers and for your business and it's going to be higher strategy work that is going to require people to think about it. So having more time to think is like very exciting and not be so scattered and so rushed all the time.
- [49:23]
B
Yeah. Oh no, I feel that one. That's really good. Have you been on any bands websites lately? I've just been checking out a few and I've been blown away by some of the experiences that artists create on their websites where you go in there and it's like a single page and there's Nowhere you can click and you're like, I don't know, I'm trying to figure out where you're going to play and I can't. And you have to like go down this little wormhole and then, oh, if you click over here, it takes you over here. Then you like watch some video. That's silly. And then it's like, so it's clear that someone was having fun making this thing. And now I completely remember that experience. And I actually love going on your website now because it's fun and I have not seen that with a brand in a very long time. I used to be that way. I remember, you know, going on to. Yeah, I used to be like super fun. And you'd be like, oh, look at the way that like when I move my, my click around, it does this thing. Or if I right click funny, it'll have this thing. Or like when Google, whenever You got the 404 error page and it was a T. Rex that you can play and how much fun that was. You know, I think that there is and we're missing that and there's a lot of creative people out there that, you know, maybe in the music industry, I see it a lot where they're applying that to the experience and it sets the tone for everything. I saw a Glass Animals concert. Are you familiar with Glass Animals? Yeah, yeah. I saw their concert a couple months ago and the entire experience from like me purchasing ticket to me showing up in person to the, the whole concert and the way they did the lights and everything, I was just blown away by how thorough that experience was.
- [50:53]
A
Like, everything feels on brand.
- [50:55]
B
Yes. And I'm like, but how. Why is it that these major enterprises that have way, like way more money cannot make me feel that way whenever I am interacting with them? It is an interesting challenge.
- [51:06]
A
Well, it's because, I mean, the music example is awesome because, you know, in many instances artists were put in a corner. Their ticket revenue is going here. Their, their recording revenue is going here. If you want to know about the person, check Instagram or Twitter or go on Wikipedia. And it's like, well, what's left for me? What's left to own? And you could see a lot of artists like really leaning back into the live experience and then using their own properties as a, as a form of self expression. And I love that. I think that like artist websites From Remember like 10, 15 years ago, there'd be like 10 songs and like a bio that was always outdated and you know, you don't need that you were like, oh, I'll just go on like Spotify or Apple Music or this and that. So I think that when, when you put a category or an industry into a corner, they're forced to get creative, and that's what's happening here. And I think what you're going to see over the next few years is a lot of industries put in a corner and they're going to be forced to get creative to come up with their version of what their website looks like. You know, is it going to be the same as a, as a music artist? No, but it'll be something experiential and fun. Then you have to assume, like, look, this is not the New York Times. Your, your customer is not going to this website every single day, three times a day. They're not, they don't. It's not what you do. But if you have them once a month or twice a year, make it count. Make them remember the next experience so that when they buy your product or go into a store or get a delivery, it feels good. So I just think that, like, it's a big, it's a big experience and opportunity for, for a lot of people right now.
- [52:41]
B
I also think you have to put some guidelines on. You mentioned personalization, Right. So, like, my experience of a brand can almost be completely unique than someone else's. But I think you need to put some world building around that where it's like, yes, I'm experiencing it differently, but I'm still in that world. Just like when I go to Disneyland, right. Like, I'm going to a different park than you. I'm experiencing different rides than you. But like, holistically, the experience I'm having of Disney is the same as you. So I do think that's going to be a challenge is as we get more personalized, how can you still create this world that I'm playing in that I don't forget that it was you? Because if it does get way too personalized now, I'm not tied to you. I try to go to communicate with John about my experience at Disneyland and he's like, I didn't even have that same experience at all because I was in a totally different world than you.
- [53:26]
A
It has to be branded.
- [53:27]
B
Yeah.
- [53:28]
A
And also you have to know your lane as a brand. You don't want to be giving people information that's not relevant to your. Your business.
- [53:34]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [53:35]
A
But I really think that, like, it could be as simple as, you know, we're going to be engaging with all these alarms you know, daily. Right. And they're going to understand your profile, your habits, your picks. And it could be as simple as just like I am now shopping for like, a new pair of pants. And based on a million prompts and inputs from the last six months, it's going to understand that, like, John has choice paralysis, John gets overwhelmed really easily, and John only likes X, Y and Z. And my shopping experience might be like, really, really closed, while maybe yours is like, wide open and like, way more exploratory. And like, you, you know, sit down at night and you're like, I can't wait to like, just like, immerse myself in this all night. And I'm just like, I want to get in and out so fast or I'm not going to buy anything. So like even, just like the unspoken where I don't have to say that to, to anyone, it'll just know it about like the way I, I browse, the way I interact and that it'll personalize even just like around my, my habits.
- [54:39]
B
John, thank you so much for coming on Experts of Experience. I've loved having you. If people want to follow along with you or with wondersauce, where's a really good spot for them to check you guys out?
- [54:49]
A
Yeah, you can check us out on our website, wondersauce.com or you can follow me on LinkedIn. John Samponia. I'm pretty active.
- [54:56]
B
Yeah, he's going to post that vibe coding LinkedIn post for y' all very soon. I, I, I, I'm sure he will.
- [55:01]
A
I will.
- [55:03]
B
Awesome. Thanks, John.
- [55:04]
A
Take care.