December 7, 2025 • 47 mins
What happens when a tech industry veteran gets frustrated with complicated video editing software? They build something better. In this captivating conversation, Jeremy shares his journey from early-2000s startups like Sling Media to leadership roles at media giants before launching his AI-powered video editing platform.
Whether you're an instructional designer looking to enhance learning materials, a marketer seeking to increase your content output, or an entrepreneur considering your next venture, this episode delivers actionable insights on harnessing AI's creative potential. Ready to experiment with the future of video creation? This conversation is your starting point.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jackie Pelegrin (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Designing with
Love podcast.
I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you
information, tips, and tricks asan instructional designer.
Hello instructional designersand educators, welcome to
episode 70 of the Designing withLove podcast.
I'm thrilled to have JeremyToman, the founder and CEO of
(00:23):
Augie Studio, a social videoediting startup, and host of the
Founder at 50 podcast, with metoday.
Welcome, Jeremy.
Jeremy Toeman (00:32):
Thanks, jackie, so great to be here.
Jackie Pelegrin (00:34):
Yes, it's great .
We were talking a little bitbefore this recording about how
we connected, so I'm really gladthat we're here and we're able
to talk a little bit about whatyou do.
So it's wonderful.
So, to start, can you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
share what inspired you to focuson AI video technology?
Jeremy Toeman (00:50):
Sure, I'll skip the when I was a wee lad in
Canada bit, but I've been in thesort of tech and media
conversion space for pretty muchall of my career.
In the early 2000s I wasinvolved in startups like
Mediabolic, which became part ofTiVo, and Macrovision.
I was the first employee in it,sling Media, which built the
original Slingbox, which, foryounger audiences, was the first
(01:14):
way you could actually watch TVon the internet pre-Netflix,
pre-youtube all that stuff Spentsome time helping out other
startups, launch companies likeWaze and Sonos and Vudu and
others had some startups of myown in the 2010s, also kind of
around this space.
Then I had kids, which is adifferent kind of startup, and
(01:35):
spent my career yeah, I had tomake a little pivot, as they'd
say, and I went over to CBS andWarner Media and Etsy and spent
some time in leadership rolesover there and then that sort of
set me up with this interestingkind of place in life where my
kids are starting to get older.
I had learned amazing things atthese big companies and it
(01:56):
started noticing a little holein the market from a personal
need, which is I needed to makea video to promote my original
podcast with someone who's nowmy co-founder.
I tried learning how to useAdobe Premiere Pro.
Basically couldn't make anyprogress despite hours and hours
of online tutorials, andstarted realizing that, you know
, pro is the tool forprofessionals.
(02:18):
And then, like, tools likeCapCut are great for you know,
influencer style videos, but Ididn't want either of those
things.
I wanted something else.
And rather, for you know,influencer style videos, but I
didn't want either of thosethings.
I wanted something else.
And rather than you know, hirepeople to solve a problem for me
.
Whatever I decided, it was timeto do another startup, and
that's how Augie was born.
Jackie Pelegrin (02:35):
Wow, that's great.
So you saw a need and what youwanted, but you, uh, and you
looked at those tools that wereout there and they were just too
bland for you too.
Cookie cutter, right.
You needed something that wasgoing to meet the need of what
you actually wanted and werelooking for.
Jeremy Toeman (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, to be honest, it was a little less
like cookie cutter per se.
It was more that pro is justpro.
You could do anything right Ifyou know how to use Adobe Pro,
like you can make movies.
It's like Christopher Nolanuses those tools or his editors
do right.
And I just wanted to make, forlack of a dinky little video
promoting my podcast.
(03:13):
So my needs were totally not atthat pro level.
I used to make this analogythat it's like you wouldn't
learn to fly a helicopter to getmilk from your corner store,
right, like you just't learn tofly a helicopter to get milk
from your corner store, right,yes, right, like you, just walk
on over, right.
I wanted something that's likethe walk on over version.
Jackie Pelegrin (03:29):
That makes sense, okay, yeah.
So Adobe Premiere Pro, was it?
Just it had all the bells andwhistles.
But you didn't want all thebells and whistles, you just
wanted to cut to the chase,right, yeah?
Jeremy Toeman (03:39):
Exactly.
Yeah, you got it I love it.
Jackie Pelegrin (03:40):
Yeah, you got it.
I love it, got it.
That's great, I love that.
So, as you mentioned in yourintro, you've made some major
shifts in your career, fromworking at WarnerMedia to diving
into that AI-poweredstorytelling and podcasting.
So what are some things you'velearned about reinventing
yourself later in life, and howdo you think that shapes the way
you approach creativetechnology today?
Jeremy Toeman (04:00):
This is a great question, jackie, and, to be
(04:21):
honest, I might answer itdifferently tomorrow and the day
after that and the day afterthat.
I'm in such an interestingpersonal phase.
I have just started the podcaston my own addressing this exact
topic.
This is my first startup in 12years during which I spent only
time at these mega corporations,and I think you know I don't.
First of all, I don't have athis will apply to everybody
kind of answer, I think.
For me, I've always been in thissort of weird combination of
wanting to learn, always wantingto learn something, and then
I'm a really big adherent tothis concept of ikigai, which is
this Japanese principle aroundsort of meaningfulness in what
(04:44):
you do, and I always now forgetthings on the spot.
But it's the combination ofwhat are you good at, what does
the world need, what will youget paid to do?
And oh, there's a fourth one inthere too.
It's important.
Well, we'll, you know, I'llremember after, but it's all
about centering yourself aroundyour own skills, what you can
(05:05):
get paid for, right, because ifyou're really good at something
but the world won't pay for it,you're a volunteer and that's
okay, and that's why I volunteerfor things.
If you're really good atsomething, or if you're not
really good at something in theworld, they'll pay really well
for it.
Well, you have to go learnabout it.
(05:27):
So I've sort of always used thisto find things that are true
for me.
I care about team beyondanything.
I care about who I work withmore than anything.
I knock on wood, but in 30years I've spent less than two
of those years working with orfor people that don't excite me
to get out of bed every morning,kind of thing.
So I think, as I have been aging, I keep looking at you know how
are these same criterias atplay, like could I cure cancer?
(05:51):
No, can I make cool,entertaining products that
really important and smartdoctors can use when they get
home at night and they just needa break from their difficult
days?
Yes, I can, right.
So I always try to sort ofalign what am I good at with
those things?
And, candidly, as my kids havebecome teenagers in fact, my
youngest is off to school atRISD now I've time again to do
(06:15):
startups right.
I couldn't do a startup when mykids were eight because, a they
need me more and B it's a wholedifferent game and we're all
having a lot of fun and playinggames and doing things like that
, right, but now they're in highschool and their time need of
mine is a lot less and I reallylike to show them also like hey,
(06:35):
sometimes you don't get a job,sometimes you make a job.
Right, so I pull all this stuffin.
I know that's a convolutedanswer, but that's how my silly
brain works.
Jackie Pelegrin (06:45):
That's okay, I love it and it sounds like, as
you were mentioning all thosethings.
I relate to that so wellbecause I've been in
instructional design in highereducation, did a little bit of
corporate for a while, for goingon 18 years.
I've been in higher educationand then in this field,
instructional designspecifically for almost 15 years
(07:05):
and I never imagined I'd beteaching college courses now for
four years and then I didn'tthink I would start a podcast
two years ago.
But yeah, it's amazing and I'malmost in my fifties myself.
So it's like, wow, you don'tthink those things are going to
come along.
And then you realize, wow,there's a need I need to fill
and let me just do it right, letme just start it up and see
(07:28):
where it goes right.
You just never know where it'lltake you, and I think that's the
beauty of it is that so manypeople want those assurances and
those things that they know.
Oh okay, I know I'll make moneywith this and I'm like, oh no,
if you're just doing it for themoney, then where's the passion,
right there?
Has to I think the passion hasto come first, and then the
money follows it and and that'sthe reward right For having that
(07:53):
passion and meeting thepeople's needs meeting the world
needs.
Jeremy Toeman (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
You know, I, I and I reallywant to to the point of what you
were just saying.
I really want to also show mykids like and I really want to
to the point of what you werejust saying I really want to
also show my kids like look, ofcourse the quote unquote normal
path is you go get a job, etcetera.
But by showing them and like,actually it's not necessarily
get a job, maybe it's make a jobright, maybe it's make not only
(08:26):
a job for you, like make a jobfor others right.
The moment I go fundraising, youknow, and I successfully close
around, I can now hire people orhire companies or hire services
, which is creating even more ofan effect downstream.
And I really like to think thatyou know, the venture capital
money is there for entrepreneurslike me and you to go unlock
and bring back into the worldand create jobs.
And sometimes we make it andsometimes we don't.
But I love that they get to seedifferent ways of how life
(08:48):
could be, because, sure, gettinga job is the direct and easy
path and maybe that's whatthey'll all do and maybe not,
and so it's good to show themthe different ways.
Jackie Pelegrin (09:00):
You can be Right, because they all don't
have to fit the same mold andall go the same path.
They're all unique individualsand one may decide I don't have
to fit the same mold and all gothe same path.
They're all unique individuals,and so one may decide I don't
want to go to college, like yousaid.
I want to make a job and I wantto be an entrepreneur.
That's the great thing abouttoday, with all the technology
evolving and changing, is thatthere's more opportunities now
than what you and I had when wewere in high school.
(09:22):
We had, I remember, in highschool, having a pager and no
cell phone.
And I remember talking to somehigh school kids and they're
like, what's a pager?
And I'm like, oh my gosh, theyhaven't even heard of a pager.
But I'm like, yeah, that's justthe way this generation is.
There's just some things thatthey don't.
It doesn't click with thembecause they are not familiar
with it.
Jeremy Toeman (09:47):
So it's funny.
Yeah, I wonder, though, I'llbet, I'll bet, I'll bet you
there's a market today forstarting a new pager company.
I'm not kidding, yeah, have youbeen following that?
Like uh, cause it went throughour family is that teenagers are
now seeking out digital camerasagain because they want to be
able to take pictures in adisconnected way, right?
So my daughter had one atsummer camp, and so now I'm
thinking I'm like wow, what youknow, you brought a pager.
I haven't thought about that.
Well, I'll bet you you could gopretty trendy with Jenny for a
(10:09):
little while on, like hipsterpagers, you know.
Jackie Pelegrin (10:13):
Yeah, because it was.
It was such a popular thingwhen I was, I think, a sophomore
in high school and I was like Iwant to pay my dad's, like,
okay, you want a pager, work forit, go, go, do it go, you know.
And I was like, and it wasfunny because it was all,
because it was the trend, thatwas what all my friends had.
But we didn't have.
We had to actually go to a payphone.
Right, have money, go to a payphone to call somebody.
(10:34):
So it's funny how.
And when I told them that thatthat's what we had to do,
they're like, wow, that soundscomplicated and I'm like that's
just the way it was.
Know, we didn't know anythingdifferent back then.
So it's funny.
Jeremy Toeman (10:45):
We didn't know better.
We didn't know different.
We didn't, but those were thechoices.
Jackie Pelegrin (10:49):
You know Exactly, yep, you were just
given something and you wentwith it and yeah, it's funny.
I like that.
So what I love, too, is you'reworking on some fascinating
projects using AI to helpcreators and marketers tell
stories in a new ways, which isgreat, because my background is
in marketing, so I relate tothis.
So, from your perspective,what's the biggest creative
(11:09):
opportunity AI opens up forthings like video creation, and
what's one challenge that westill need to solve in that area
?
Jeremy Toeman (11:54):
this is again one of those.
I think if we had been talkinga month ago, I'd have a
different kind of answer.
We're at the point where Iwould say you know, there's
always this going quote of likewhen was the best time to start
doing X?
It was like 10 years ago.
When's the next best time?
Today?
I would say we are right nowentered this phase where, if you
(12:14):
are anywhere related tomarketing whether you're an
individual entrepreneur and youneed to market yourself or some
huge company somewhere video hasto be part of the strategy.
Right?
We know that the I mean I canjust bore you with stats right
now, but any stat on like isvideo marketing important?
Is going to be basically likeuh-huh.
(12:34):
So I would say this is the timeto be experimenting with the
various flavors and tools.
So, first and foremost, there'smultiple categories of where AI
can help you with video In ourcase, for example, and there are
other tools like Descript, veedand others, where you have
content and you need to figureout how to make an ad with that
(12:56):
content.
Well, you can upload or createthat content in those platforms,
do some basic editing, push itlive.
So, video editing.
I think the next category isaround AI and video generation,
and this is where you can say Iwant a blonde hair, blue eyed
boy riding a unicorn throughTimes Square on a busy afternoon
(13:18):
, or something like that, andmake a clip of something that
never existed before.
And while a lot of that ispurely for the fun of it,
there's also a lot of pragmaticuse.
So I will reference Augie, butthere are many other ways to do
this.
Inside Augie.
You can go to our generatefeature and, for example, upload
.
Actually, I was doing a projectfor a customer and we uploaded a
(13:38):
picture of one of their dressesand then I said make it look
like the model's spinning aroundshowing off the dress she's
wearing from a still picture ofa woman wearing a dress on an
all white background.
And it did, and it looksamazing.
And, yes, you can findartifacts and sometimes her hair
(13:59):
flows in the opposite directionto her body.
So it's not perfect.
Three more prompts later and itwill be.
And so what I would say is youdon't have to make stuff like
Kid and the Unicorn in TimesSquare.
You can take your existingassets now and start bringing
them to life in a different way.
Right?
You have a simple product.
I was doing a thing for a spicerub like a steak rub, and the
(14:25):
picture was a pile of spices.
I said, have a hand, siftthrough them, and it sprinkled
them all around and it lookssuper realistic.
So this is a great time to beexperimenting.
I will say your mileage may vary.
You will probably spend a lotmore money on tokens and such
than you might want to at thisstage.
So it is definitely in a beready for experimentation.
(14:48):
But whatever you're doing, soagain, if you have lots of your
existing content, use AI editingtools to help trim them down.
If you have no content, use AIgenerative tools to make
something from nothing.
But no matter what, experimentwith getting yourself on one of
these platforms.
If you want to do influencerstyle videos, start with CapCut
it's amazing, right.
(15:08):
Or even the basic TikTok orReels app You're out of excuses
now, right?
If you don't want to be onscreen, use Augie.
Make a headless video.
If you don't want to recordyour own voice maybe you're not
like the two of us and don'twant your voice out there on
things use a synthetic voice.
Ours uses 11 labs for that, sothere's so many options now Dive
(15:28):
in, play around with them.
The cool part is, most of themhave free trials or limited free
packages or services.
So I would say this is the timeto be experimenting.
Jackie Pelegrin (15:38):
That's great, Jeremy.
I love that.
Have you worked with anyinstitutions or any in the
education space, like withtraining, professional
development types of things too?
Because I could see thatworking well with education to
create training videos and makethem better and reinvent those
too.
Jeremy Toeman (15:56):
That's right.
We do have a lot of those uses.
We have a lot of internal commsteams that use Augie Also to
take things like you know.
Let's say, the CEO gives akeynote at a conference and has
a 45 minute speech.
Well, you know, just like youand I chop up highlights from
our podcasts, so do social mediateams, for mega companies need
(16:17):
to do the same thing.
So there's plenty of use thatwe're seeing.
We also have some educationaluse happening.
We have a couple of film classesat a variety of high schools
that we've given them free useof Augie to go help their
students learn the basics ofthings like storyboarding, which
Augie does automatically.
Again, not with the goal of themdoing everything with AI, but
(16:40):
with a goal of themunderstanding how to experiment
with storytelling before, forexample, filming.
Right, the most expensive partof making any video is filming,
and so if you can shortcut thator pre-optimize it using, like
we use a Getty stock assets tobuild your prototype, so if you
can see like, oh, I want to have, you know, a man and a woman
(17:03):
walking along the beach atsunset and then you know they're
going to go off and play in thewater and the dog comes, and
that's going to be my.
You know, think about everypharma ad, right, you know, if
you can, you can prototype thewhole thing and save all that
money before going down toactually shoot.
We even had a film student asan intern last summer making a
(17:23):
historical film all on top ofthe side of Augie.
So we've always made itaccessible to educational
facilities so that we like theidea that businesses can pay for
it and educational use can befor free, so that we can help
support other people who want toget their stories out.
That's always been just sort ofreally important to me.
Jackie Pelegrin (17:42):
Wow, that's great.
You know you mentioned thatwith that example of the film
industry.
It's funny because ininstructional design we do
prototyping, we do storyboarding, we do that kind of same thing,
so that that way, like you said, you don't so when we go to
create the e-learning or sometype of micro learning, we're
not spending all that time inthe development stage and
(18:06):
producing it and then having togo back and make a bunch of
changes because it costs time.
It costs a lot of money to timeis money, right.
Jeremy Toeman (18:13):
So time is money yeah.
Jackie Pelegrin (18:15):
So we actually do, and I'm teaching a class
right now about that very thingand it's about organizational
and workplace development.
So it's all about how OKR islike objectives and key results
and how to.
How do you help a company dothat?
But one of the things they'redoing is they're having to do a
prototype and do a storyboardand then later on in the course.
(18:37):
So this, I'm in top, we're intopic two right now and then in
topic five they actually buildthe e-learning module.
So it's for a company, it's fora fake company, but it's kind
of neat because it gets themthat opportunity to really dive
in and do that.
But I could see your, yourplatform working really well for
that industry too, for learningand development, instructional
(18:57):
design, those that are in that,because it's a growing.
I don't know if you know this,Jeremy, but instructional design
is all across, everywhere.
It's in military, higher ed,corporate, nonprofit, so anytime
you hear someone sayinglearning and development and I
do this, that's kind of that'swhat I do.
So it's pretty fascinating.
Yeah, so there's a lot ofparallels too between you know,
(19:21):
uh, the creative fields, Um, soit's neat how we do.
We do this kind of thosesimilar things that they do in
the creative arts as well.
So it's kind of cool.
Jeremy Toeman (19:31):
I mean, it is creative, right, like I think
about.
You know, half of the stuff thatwe'll watch on the YouTube is
an instructional video of somekind Whether I'm being edutained
by a Mark Rober or whatever orsome random channel that you
follow, half the time we're onYouTube getting some kind of
instruction on something.
So I could easily see thatdemand.
(19:52):
Actually, we had been workingwith a company that does, um, uh
, industrial machinery and theywanted to take their instruction
manual and effectively bring itto life, and so they've been
doing that in augie.
And so, um, they took, yeah,they they scanned in, or I guess
they already had the digital,so that doesn't make sense, but
they uploaded all of the framesof each page of the manual and
(20:16):
then use generative tools to.
You know, if it was like it waslike a wireframe you know one
of those like wireframe stylesand they just had, you know they
, they're still doing it, butthey have, like the guys walking
, not just standing or pickingup the ladder, you know, so you
can bring those things to lifein a really interesting way.
Jackie Pelegrin (20:33):
That's great, and hopefully they've got an
instructional designer that willlook at that later, because
that's one of the reallyinterested in doing consulting
work and things like that,because then I can kind of help
(21:01):
bring you know companies alongand say, okay, great, you want
to do that, but let's make sureis it going to still work for
learners still gonna?
Is it still gonna make the sameimpact for them?
Yeah, so I love that.
That's great.
Yeah, so you mentioned TikTokearlier.
So with your work touchingplatforms like TikTok and Adobe,
we know there's a constant pushto create faster and smarter.
(21:21):
Even I get that in work all thetime.
It's like get that out faster.
We wanted it yesterday, right.
Jeremy Toeman (21:27):
Right.
Jackie Pelegrin (21:28):
How do you balance the drive for efficiency
while making sure that humanand emotional side of
storytelling doesn't get lost inthe mix?
Jeremy Toeman (21:37):
storytelling doesn't get lost in the mix.
That's a really good question.
I think the first statement I'dmake is when we think about
video, I think a lot of usespecially if you're anywhere
near our age groups, I'd say, ifyou're actually probably about
35 plus video probably carriesnot a stigma but a certain
weightiness to it.
We feel like, oh, if you wantto make a video, that's going to
be work, even if you're doinglike an Insta or LinkedIn or a
(22:02):
TikTok post.
And I think if you're muchyounger, you don't feel that way
because it's so.
You know, you grew up, you'renative in that world.
So the first thing I'd say isyou got to stop thinking like we
think, which is?
It's better to have more outthere that is, for lack of a
better phrase good enough thanto make sure you're only doing
(22:24):
one perfect video a year.
Right?
The reality check is most postsare forgotten.
Most posts are to feed thealgorithm.
Right, and it's not to sayphone it in every time.
It is to say you don't have tobe, uh, christopher nolan on
every tiktok post.
You don't have to work it toperfection.
(22:45):
Depends a lot on what yourbrand is and what your products
are.
Right, sometimes good enough isplaying along with a meme, or
sometimes good enough is justone.
You know I I this will be areally weird off topic I'm a big
fan of this craft brewerycalled tree house.
Well, they created a channelcalled tree house releases and
all it is is whenever there's anew beer they've got maybe just
(23:07):
a simple picture of it, maybe alittle clip of the brewer who
knows.
But I like that way of thinking.
It's like you don't have to beperfect with every piece of
content you put out there.
However, those algorithms don'tcare about your feelings.
You know what I mean.
Like, those algorithms expectto be fed and so, more important
(23:28):
than the quality of your video,I mean again, don't put out
garbage and please don't put outAI slop Augie is not an AI slop
product.
Don't put out AI slop Augie isnot an AI slop product, but
figure out a cadence and stickto it and then think about
increasing it over time.
It's almost like working out.
Just go to the gym once a week.
You don't have to be whateveron day one, in fact.
(23:51):
Go to the gym, go for a walk.
If you didn't do anythingyesterday, go for a walk today.
Just do something to show thatprogress Right.
And the second thing I'd say,by the way, is then don't start
until you're ready.
Don't start, and then, sevenweeks later, put a second post
and then five weeks later yougot another post.
Get ready, figure out like,okay, our brand's going to post
(24:11):
three times a week.
One of those posts will be themaking of, one of those posts
will be interview with thefounder, and one of those posts
will be a thoughtful way ofusing our product or something
like that.
You don't have to go that crazy.
You can in fact go to ChatGPTand say here's what I do.
I need an idea for a lowfriction, tiktok cadence and
(24:33):
suggested series of content.
Like you know, what I'll say toanyone listening is you got no
excuse anymore to not beexperimenting somewhere right,
absolutely Don't worry.
You know the water's fine, Comeon in.
Jackie Pelegrin (24:48):
Exactly.
Yeah, I haven't been divinginto video yet, but that's one
thing I want to do because I'veheard that that helps with your
like you said the algorithms,youtube.
It helps get the get you outthere a little bit more and more
visibility.
And it's interesting because Istarted I actually did that with
ChatGPT because I wanted to doa marketing promo for four weeks
(25:09):
and I was like, hey, chatgpthere, it knows enough about my
podcast and it knows that I'mwriting a book too.
So it's kind of funny because,like, well, yeah, you can do
this and subtly promote this.
And so it gave me, jeremy, awhole four week marketing
platform of what I could dohere's what you can post and do
it like this week on Designingwith Love and do like a, you
(25:31):
know, a post with it and I useCanva for all my artwork.
So I did that and I asked itfor ideas on what I could put on
that to make it so it wasn'toverwhelming, with too much text
, right and, to you know,visually appealing, without too
much information.
And then it said well, then youcould do do that on Sunday and
then do a poll every Wednesday.
(25:51):
And I asked her for some ideasand it just yeah, it just laid
it all out for me and I keptprompting it and saying, okay,
yeah, can you revise this alittle bit?
This is not quite what I waslooking for.
And it just I kept working withthe tool and it just all of a
sudden I had a and it was likehere, do you want me to, you
know, put your marketing?
And I just yeah, I was like,wow, this is great.
So I've got it all running andit's all ready to go and
(26:15):
everything.
So it's.
This is the second week it'sbeen going and I just put all
the posts and the polls in thereand then just schedule them, so
I don't have to do anythingevery week.
It's all ready to go.
So it's great.
And I'm like, if this is reallysuccessful, I may actually do
this on a regular basis, becauseif people love it this week on,
you know, designing with love,I'll keep it going.
(26:35):
So it's great.
Jeremy Toeman (26:37):
It's really easy.
Yeah, I'll give you here.
I pulled up in the tab reallyquick just to get a number I to
support this sort of thesis thatJackie's giving everybody.
I, for my podcast, which Istarted in April with no real
promotion, I post on LinkedIn.
In fact, I don't posteverything on LinkedIn because
otherwise my feed will just looklike this constant self-promo
(26:57):
thing.
So I only post sometimes andI'm not active on social media.
By the way, I'm not anInstagrammer.
I gave up on Twitter back whenit was Twitter and I'm just not
interested.
No disrespect to that entireworld, it's just not what I want
to do.
And so I have decided, though,for this podcast, I created
(27:18):
platforms for it, so it's gotits own Insta, tiktok and
YouTube accounts, and I startedposting the clips not just to
Instagram and TikTok, but Istarted putting them on YouTube
Shorts.
I will tell you, I have clipswith zero when I started, with
zero folders, and I still onlyhave a couple, I think a couple
of dozen.
I have several posts now thathave hundreds of views, nothing
(27:39):
to promote them.
They build the audiencethemselves, they're sending me
subscribers, and all I'm doingis picking good snippets from my
podcast, obviously editing anAugie, and that's, by the way,
part of my excuse as a busystartup guy is how do I do a
podcast?
Well, it's like they say eatingthe dog food.
(28:00):
It's like that for me.
Jackie Pelegrin (28:01):
Right, exactly.
Yeah, I love that, and that'swhat I've been doing too is
using those shorts and postingthem.
And uh, two weeks ago today Iactually I had uh seven
subscribers on YouTube.
I haven't looked today to seeyet, but now, two weeks later, I
think I have almost 300subscribers and some of my
shorts have and again, they'revideo shorts but they don't have
(28:30):
any, you know.
You know cause, you know thisis audio only.
So Riverside will take those.
Uh, the AI and it'll, you know,bring those video shorts to me,
which is great, um, but yeah,it's, it's, it's got the video,
but it's just a background, soit's, there's no face to it.
But some of them have, I think,almost 1,500 views or something
like that.
So I'm like, wow, that'samazing.
Jeremy Toeman (28:47):
That's great.
Jackie Pelegrin (28:48):
Yeah, oh, those little things right that you
can do to really bring that upand be able to bring more
visibility to what you're doing.
And then it helps not only yourpodcast but it helps your brand
, it helps your influence andyour credibility, everything.
So it's a.
It's a win-win across the board.
I love it.
That's great.
Jeremy Toeman (29:09):
Love that.
Jackie Pelegrin (29:10):
Yeah, that's, that's wonderful.
So, as we wrap up, what aresome top tips or advice for
listeners who are looking tolaunch a startup like what you
have, or getting into AI plusvideo, as we mentioned earlier?
Jeremy Toeman (29:20):
Well I'd say, if you've never, if you've never
done a startup before at all,and you're looking to do
venture-funded style startup, inother words, we could argue
that any business is a startup,right, me doing my podcast is a
startup.
But just for this moment, ifwe'll agree that what we mean by
starting a startup is somethingwhere you intend to raise
(29:42):
venture capital or hopefullyyou're so profitable you don't
even need that but you're goingto build an organization and
form a corporation, do all thethings and, you know, maybe
build a lot of tech to go launchsomething.
The only thing I want to tellpeople is that it's so much
harder than you've ever expectedanything to be in.
Ever have a co-founder, no solofounders.
(30:04):
I tried it once way long ago,regretted that instantly and
ever since I've loved havingsomeone else out there to cry on
their shoulders when they needto or be there for theirs when
they need it.
So startups are just plain hardright, it's a lot of work, it's
soul sucking and also, by theway, it's the best thing ever.
Jackie Pelegrin (30:27):
And.
Jeremy Toeman (30:27):
I was once asked.
I gave a speech on this exacttopic and someone asked me a
question like Jeremy, you seemto have endless energy for this.
Where does it come from?
And my answer was I don't know.
And that's what I would say is,if you don't know where your
energy comes from, but it's justalways there, you've probably
got some of what it's going totake, because you're going to
need lots of energy and thereality check is not a lot of
(30:50):
things.
Refill that bucket a lot of thetime.
Right when we have wins, youknow they're huge, but sometimes
it can be a long time betweenwins.
You know most of the articlespeople will read on a startup
are about the successful ones.
The articles people will readon a startup are about the
successful ones.
There's not as much writtenabout the.
There's some written on theglorious failures, but there's
not a lot of the 90% ofbusinesses that really just
(31:12):
don't take off, and there'snothing wrong with that, and
I've been part of those.
You know it's part of thefabric of this, of this whole
ecosystem.
You're going to fail atsomething, right?
I think it's a lot about makingsure you're just really ready
for that.
So I have a huge amount ofthoughts on like, before you
start a startup, on getting intoAI video, like as soon as you
(31:34):
finish this episode and like andsubscribe and all those cool
things.
Go try these products.
Okay, ours is Augiestudio, butgo try Runway.
Go try Veo, go try Opus, go tryVeed, go try these things out.
Figure out what's the right onefor your product, goods,
service, brand and play withthem, and if it's not doing the
(31:56):
thing you need, try the next one.
My biggest tip, though, is likefigure out what you think you
need going into them, becausewe're all a little different.
Don't come to Augie expectingrunway.
We're not runway.
Go to runway.
It's great so, but no excuses,y'all Go try something.
It's too much fun to play withthis tech to not be playing with
(32:16):
this tech.
Jackie Pelegrin (32:17):
Right, I like the advice you give not going
into it blindly.
Having a plan of action,knowing what is my goal, what
are, what is, what are theoutcomes I want?
Right, it's what we call ininstructional design.
It's a backward design approach.
So instead, of starting at thebeginning, we start at the end
and we see what's our goal,what's our outcome, what is that
, that end of the road that wewant?
(32:39):
And then we work from thebackward, we work backwards.
So we do that sometimes incurriculum design, because
sometimes we'll start at thebeginning where we're like, okay
, we have to look at topics,objectives, and.
But then the subject matterexperts aren't sure where they
what the, where they want tostart, and they start to
struggle with it.
So I say to my curriculumdevelopers, let's do backwards
(33:00):
design and let's start at theend and ask them what do you
want them to accomplish at theend of this course or at the end
of this topic?
And then they're like, oh, Iwant them to do this.
And we're like, okay, great,Now let's build it from there
and then we'll.
Then we'll put the objectivesin and we'll put those together.
So that's kind of how I look atcreative work too.
Right, you have to sometimes dothat unconventional approach to
(33:23):
it.
Jeremy Toeman (33:23):
When we have companies come to us to get
started at Augie because wealways do a handheld onboarding
they often will ask well, wheredo we start?
And our first question isn't.
I was like that's the wrongquestion.
The first question is what doyou want to create?
And if most people will say,I'm not quite sure.
So here's my tip for anyonewho's not sure what kind of
video to create, or anyone who'snot sure what kind of video to
(33:43):
create, go find a video you like.
Right?
If you're making a let's callit an ad for your product, Well,
go find an ad for some otherproduct.
It doesn't have to be in yourcategory, in fact, preferably
not.
That you like.
You know.
It could be an ad for pants ora car or a beer or whatever.
It doesn't matter.
But if there's a style like oh,start to think about it.
I like a witty voice, narrationin the background, or I want no
(34:06):
narration, or I want a persontalking at the camera, or I
don't want that.
Do I want you know?
Give some thought like what isthe video you like?
What is the thing thattriggered you to positively to
buy a product, good or service?
Then start building toward thatend, right?
Uh, if you see something that'sshowing lots and lots of cool
(34:28):
CGI that's showing, you know,like if you watched any of the
recent Apple's coverage the thiswas the week they announced the
Apple iPhone, air and et ceteraall of their videos were these
really cool, like they explodedout what's inside the product
and like lots of really niftyuse of, I assume, cgi or AI, et
cetera.
Well, that's going to be a lotof work.
You know that that's going totake a chunk of time.
(34:49):
If, on the other hand, you wanta video of you know a woman
walking down the street goinginto your favorite restaurant,
that's pretty easy to recreate.
Let's go do that.
Jackie Pelegrin (34:58):
Right, yeah, and see what, yeah, what your.
I like that because that's alsowhere marketing comes in right
Looking at what's what are thetimes.
We call it benchmarking.
We look to see where the othersimilar uh, types of products,
like you said, or services, likeyou said, doesn't even have to
be in the same industry, butsomething where, yeah, it sparks
(35:18):
your interest and yourattention.
I love that.
That's great.
You know, cause I like vintagestuff.
I think that's that's reallyneat, to kind of go back in time
.
So, who knows, maybe for mypodcast I can do something like
that, and you know, so that'sneat.
Do you see, even like withpodcasts, do you see that
becoming something where because, as you know, we can monetize
these podcasts?
(35:38):
There's so many ways to do it?
I'm I'm in the midst offinishing up my first book and
it's based on one of the mostpopular podcasts I think it's
number three on my top five now,because they shift and change,
right, it's always an evolvingtype of thing where some will
stay at the top for a while andthen others will come because
you're always releasing.
(35:59):
But yeah, it's kind of neatbecause it came from that of
just an idea of Buzzsprout sendsout a weekly newsletter and
they said here's ways tomonetize your podcast.
And one of them was write abook.
And I'm like, wow, okay, can Ido this?
And I was like, yeah, just jumpin and do it.
So it's been a pretty coolexperience to take that content
(36:20):
and put it in book form.
So, yeah, that's pretty neat, sodo you kind of see those types
of things happening where we cancause I'll have to promote
right the book and get it outthere, and so I can see video
being a great way to promotethose types of things and get
that visual appeal to it.
Jeremy Toeman (36:37):
Right, you could upload to Augie a picture of the
front cover of your book, theback cover of your book and
yourself, and give it the simpledescription that you're already
using in your listing and saygo, and in 45 seconds you'll
have three video ads for yourbook.
All that leverage your assets,plus access to something like 95
(36:57):
million stock assets from GettyImages, all with licensing
included.
So I would say, yeah, yourscenario is exactly the one we
want.
I also want you uploading yourepisodes and turning them into
video podcasts using some of ourtools.
So I'd love to see where youtake this thing and I can't wait
to see the book when it comes.
Jackie Pelegrin (37:16):
Wow, that's great.
I love it.
Yeah, I'm almost at the end.
I have to look through it againand then I've got a.
I'm trying to decide where Iwant to take it as far as if I
want to go.
I'm thinking hybrid publishingwould be good.
I'd like to self publish, butthat's a lot of work.
I don't know if I want to gothere.
I did that.
Jeremy Toeman (37:32):
I made a, I wrote a.
I self published a children'sbook a couple of years ago Now.
To be fair, though, I wasn'treally focused on, I wasn't
trying to monetize it, I wasdonating all the profits, but
I'm glad I did it, I'm glad Iwent through the experience.
But if I could find an, agentor a publisher or something.
Jackie Pelegrin (37:51):
Next time I certainly would.
Yeah, it makes it a little biteasier.
So I thought hybrid publishingwould be good, because then I
can still have that control overthe content in some ways and
not have to give it all over tothem, right?
But we'll see where it goes.
I mean, there's always thatpossibility.
So I've got a proposal set andready to go and again, ai helped
me with that too.
I just used it as a framework tosay, okay, I've never done this
(38:14):
before.
It was my first time.
Where do I start?
What do I do?
I said, what does a proposallook like?
And it just gave me an outlineof what to put together and I
was like, wow.
And then it gave me differenttrends and stats and of course,
it was three years old.
So I was like, yeah, I got togo in there and actually do my
own research and update thestats, because the stats were a
little bit.
(38:34):
I was like I don't want topresent something that's three
years old.
So I went and updated my statsand my trends to make sure it
was current.
But it was nice because it gaveme a good framework and I'm
like, okay, this is great.
I'm not starting from scratchand I'm utilizing something
that's out there that can helpme with it.
So, yeah, I agree with you.
(38:55):
I think it's great.
Ai is really changing a lot ofthat, and I'm not copying and
pasting by any means, bututilizing it to really take what
I already have and just put itin a different format.
So it's great.
That's what it's great at.
Jeremy Toeman (39:10):
I look at it, it's like the ultimate leveler,
upper right, and you do with itwhat makes sense and what is
strategic, like it's going tolet you write a proposal that
you've never done before.
It's going to let me do thesame thing, right, or whatever.
You know, we, we wanted toapply for a grant.
I'm like I don't know whatgrant writing is supposed to
sound like.
I know how I write and I knowhow writing a pitch deck works.
(39:33):
I know how this works, so I'mable to use AI to up-level
myself with the thing I wasn'tgreat at before.
But you're also right.
Like, please, everybody, editthat stuff.
You know I've actually switchedmodes recently.
In fact, I put a post onLinkedIn today because my
co-founder and I vibe coded thegame.
By the way, talk about thingsyou can do with AI.
On Wednesday, we had an idea.
We were playtesting itWednesday night, putting on the
(39:57):
final touches Thursday andpublished it on Friday, and in
the post I wrote my own LinkedInpost, of course.
But what I like to do now is Itake the whole thing, I go to
ChatGPT and I give it a prompt,almost like this this is a post
I'm putting on LinkedIn.
Don't make any edits or changesfor the sake of making edits or
changes, please identify for meeither key grammatical flaws
(40:19):
that might make me soundbuffoonish, or poor phrasings
that could sound moreprofessional, but at the same
time, don't lose any of my toneand do not rewrite my post and
then, instead of getting here'sa garbage version of your post
back, I get a list of.
Here are some specific bullets.
So, for example, I had thephrase I still remember this.
(40:40):
The phrasing I used is we werelooking for a thing to work on.
Well, chad Javidi said it mightsound more professional to say
we were looking for a project towork on.
And it's true, right, that'scasual talk versus sort of
semi-business talk.
Jackie Pelegrin (40:52):
Right.
Jeremy Toeman (40:53):
And so now it's again.
It's back into the place whereI think AI works the best.
It's helping me, not doing itfor me.
I don't want things done for me.
I do want help at my sides atall times.
So it's a little how I thinkabout it.
Jackie Pelegrin (41:08):
I like it.
Yeah, it's refining what youalready have and just making it
flow better.
Yeah, that's true, because,like with my book, I had all the
chapters.
It was starting as top 10instructional design models and
theories.
Then I expanded it as I starteddoing more solo episodes, so
now it went from 12 chapters to20.
So I was like whoa bigger.
But it was funny because I putall the models and theories in
(41:30):
alphabetical order, thinkingthat would be the easiest thing.
So I started with 4CID, addy,went all the way down in
alphabetical order and then Iput all the chapters, the titles
of the chapters, into chat GPTand I said, hey, I'm writing a
book.
Here's the chapters.
Do you think this is a goodorder?
And chat GPT said Well, youknow what you might want to
start with the one, thefoundational models and theories
(41:53):
first, and then progress and goto the more complicated ones,
for CID is more complicated.
So I'm like, oh, my goodness,that's a great idea.
So I switched things around andthen I put it back in.
I said, okay, how does thislook?
And then it said, yeah, you'redoing better, make some tweaks
here.
And it was like revelation.
I was like, wow, I don't knowif I would have thought of that,
(42:15):
I maybe would have down theroad, maybe with a publisher,
but I think it's more polished,yeah, and so if I do go to a
publisher, I'll be like here yougo, here's all my stuff.
If they look at the proposaland they love it and they're
like, yeah, the sample chapterlooks good and we like where
you're going with it, and in theproposal it's got the chapters,
(42:36):
but then it's got informationabout each chapter, just like a
sentence or two, just to givethem insight into it.
So I'm like, yeah, so I feellike it's a lot more refined and
ready to go.
So that way it's less work onthe backend, right, and maybe it
can get published faster too.
So AI is great.
Jeremy Toeman (42:54):
Yeah Well, you just did some of the things an
editor's going to do, right.
They're going to be like JackieI love this book, but I think
it would work better this way.
You've just done that work forthem, right.
They'll still come at you withthings.
One of my other favorite thingsthat I've given it's actually
now in my permanent instructionsfor ChachiBT is long story
short.
No sycophantism.
(43:14):
Don't try to suck up to me.
Don't tell me it's great.
If it's not great, you'll haveto make me feel good.
I got other people for thatgreat.
Jackie Pelegrin (43:22):
You don't have to make me feel good, I got
other people for that, right.
Yeah, exactly, I love that.
That's great.
So before we wrap up, are thereany other any more tips or
advice that you can think of?
Jeremy Toeman (43:36):
I would say the next thing to be yeah, I would
think I want to suggest thatpeople go off and start
experimenting a little with.
You know, once you start, ifbasic chat, to be D, is sort of
like your 1.0 and then you'redoing things like AI, video and
stuff which is probably like a3.0.
I would also go suggest peoplestart experimenting things with
what?
If you've heard the term vibecoding?
Yes, so these are apps likeReplit and Lovable and Cursor
that let you describe an ideaand build a product from it, and
(43:59):
I think it's just a good brainexercise to be able to just, you
know, it's like, it's like Legofor grownups in a way, right
Like whether it's building youan app or a productivity hack or
a game, like I just did, orwhatever, but it's it.
It lets you like.
It's like flexing some set ofmuscles you don't even realize
you have.
I think it's just a good kindof brain pattern exercise as
(44:24):
much as anything else designersand all the production people
(44:46):
that they have over there.
Jackie Pelegrin (44:47):
But it's really cool because they're utilizing
AI and we just got a demo aboutthat with vibe coding, where
they're utilizing that with alltheir people there, and I'm like
wow.
So it was amazing to see itused in curriculum and just
taking complex things likescience, engineering, those
types of things and bringing itto life in so many new ways.
So it's great.
(45:07):
I love it, yeah.
Jeremy Toeman (45:09):
Well, you can see the one we built.
I'm sorry, we built a moviepongapp.
If you're a movie fan, we builta game it's called movie pong
where basically you go back andforth naming movies and actors
who are in them and you're sortof trying to it's like we call
(45:30):
it pong.
You're trying to pong youropponent by if they, if they
name an actor in a movie and youcan name another movie with the
same two actors.
Jackie Pelegrin (45:34):
Then you get a point kind of thing.
Jeremy Toeman (45:34):
So it'll probably be massively evolved by the
time this episode drops Cause.
We're just sort of wingingthrough it day by day, but
looking for feedback, look foranyone who wants to experiment
with it.
Jackie Pelegrin (45:43):
I would love to , because I remember being in
grade school and that Pong gameon what was it?
Atari?
Yeah, it was on Atari, right,the Pong game?
Yes, it was on Atari, and itwas just the two white
rectangles and then it had theball, and you would go back and
forth.
Oh, my goodness.
And then I love movies.
So is it all types of genresand all ranges like?
Jeremy Toeman (46:05):
Yeah, it's, oh, it's, it's all the movies.
We have a database of all themovies.
So yeah, movie pongapp.
Jackie Pelegrin (46:13):
I'm going to look that up and I'm sure a lot
of people will look that up.
That's great.
I love it.
Thank you so much, jeremy.
I appreciate you sharing yourinsights today.
Your experiences, your tips andexpertise are definitely going
to inspire my listeners, and Iknow that for sure.
So I appreciate it.
Jeremy Toeman (46:26):
Thanks, Jackie.
It was great to be here.
Thanks for the greatconversation and great questions
.
Jackie Pelegrin (46:31):
Absolutely yes, and AI it helped me do that, so
I can thank AI for that.
But of course I tweaked them,so I love that Great.
I look forward to having youback on the show again soon.
Jeremy Toeman (46:43):
Sounds wonderful.
We'll have a great rest of yourday.
Jackie Pelegrin (46:46):
You too, thank you.
Thank you for taking some timeto listen to this podcast
episode today.
Your support means the world tome.
If you'd like to help keep thepodcast going, you can share it
with a friend or colleague,leave a heartfelt review or
offer a monetary contribution.
Every act of support, big orsmall, makes a difference and
(47:10):
I'm truly thankful for you.
Hello and welcome to the Designing with
Love podcast.
I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you
information, tips, and tricks asan instructional designer.
Hello instructional designersand educators, welcome to
episode 70 of the Designing withLove podcast.
I'm thrilled to have JeremyToman, the founder and CEO of
(00:23):
Augie Studio, a social videoediting startup, and host of the
Founder at 50 podcast, with metoday.
Welcome, Jeremy.
Jeremy Toeman (00:32):
Thanks, jackie, so great to be here.
Jackie Pelegrin (00:34):
Yes, it's great .
We were talking a little bitbefore this recording about how
we connected, so I'm really gladthat we're here and we're able
to talk a little bit about whatyou do.
So it's wonderful.
So, to start, can you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
share what inspired you to focuson AI video technology?
Jeremy Toeman (00:50):
Sure, I'll skip the when I was a wee lad in
Canada bit, but I've been in thesort of tech and media
conversion space for pretty muchall of my career.
In the early 2000s I wasinvolved in startups like
Mediabolic, which became part ofTiVo, and Macrovision.
I was the first employee in it,sling Media, which built the
original Slingbox, which, foryounger audiences, was the first
(01:14):
way you could actually watch TVon the internet pre-Netflix,
pre-youtube all that stuff Spentsome time helping out other
startups, launch companies likeWaze and Sonos and Vudu and
others had some startups of myown in the 2010s, also kind of
around this space.
Then I had kids, which is adifferent kind of startup, and
(01:35):
spent my career yeah, I had tomake a little pivot, as they'd
say, and I went over to CBS andWarner Media and Etsy and spent
some time in leadership rolesover there and then that sort of
set me up with this interestingkind of place in life where my
kids are starting to get older.
I had learned amazing things atthese big companies and it
(01:56):
started noticing a little holein the market from a personal
need, which is I needed to makea video to promote my original
podcast with someone who's nowmy co-founder.
I tried learning how to useAdobe Premiere Pro.
Basically couldn't make anyprogress despite hours and hours
of online tutorials, andstarted realizing that, you know
, pro is the tool forprofessionals.
(02:18):
And then, like, tools likeCapCut are great for you know,
influencer style videos, but Ididn't want either of those
things.
I wanted something else.
And rather, for you know,influencer style videos, but I
didn't want either of thosethings.
I wanted something else.
And rather than you know, hirepeople to solve a problem for me
.
Whatever I decided, it was timeto do another startup, and
that's how Augie was born.
Jackie Pelegrin (02:35):
Wow, that's great.
So you saw a need and what youwanted, but you, uh, and you
looked at those tools that wereout there and they were just too
bland for you too.
Cookie cutter, right.
You needed something that wasgoing to meet the need of what
you actually wanted and werelooking for.
Jeremy Toeman (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, to be honest, it was a little less
like cookie cutter per se.
It was more that pro is justpro.
You could do anything right Ifyou know how to use Adobe Pro,
like you can make movies.
It's like Christopher Nolanuses those tools or his editors
do right.
And I just wanted to make, forlack of a dinky little video
promoting my podcast.
(03:13):
So my needs were totally not atthat pro level.
I used to make this analogythat it's like you wouldn't
learn to fly a helicopter to getmilk from your corner store,
right, like you just't learn tofly a helicopter to get milk
from your corner store, right,yes, right, like you, just walk
on over, right.
I wanted something that's likethe walk on over version.
Jackie Pelegrin (03:29):
That makes sense, okay, yeah.
So Adobe Premiere Pro, was it?
Just it had all the bells andwhistles.
But you didn't want all thebells and whistles, you just
wanted to cut to the chase,right, yeah?
Jeremy Toeman (03:39):
Exactly.
Yeah, you got it I love it.
Jackie Pelegrin (03:40):
Yeah, you got it.
I love it, got it.
That's great, I love that.
So, as you mentioned in yourintro, you've made some major
shifts in your career, fromworking at WarnerMedia to diving
into that AI-poweredstorytelling and podcasting.
So what are some things you'velearned about reinventing
yourself later in life, and howdo you think that shapes the way
you approach creativetechnology today?
Jeremy Toeman (04:00):
This is a great question, jackie, and, to be
(04:21):
honest, I might answer itdifferently tomorrow and the day
after that and the day afterthat.
I'm in such an interestingpersonal phase.
I have just started the podcaston my own addressing this exact
topic.
This is my first startup in 12years during which I spent only
time at these mega corporations,and I think you know I don't.
First of all, I don't have athis will apply to everybody
kind of answer, I think.
For me, I've always been in thissort of weird combination of
wanting to learn, always wantingto learn something, and then
I'm a really big adherent tothis concept of ikigai, which is
this Japanese principle aroundsort of meaningfulness in what
(04:44):
you do, and I always now forgetthings on the spot.
But it's the combination ofwhat are you good at, what does
the world need, what will youget paid to do?
And oh, there's a fourth one inthere too.
It's important.
Well, we'll, you know, I'llremember after, but it's all
about centering yourself aroundyour own skills, what you can
(05:05):
get paid for, right, because ifyou're really good at something
but the world won't pay for it,you're a volunteer and that's
okay, and that's why I volunteerfor things.
If you're really good atsomething, or if you're not
really good at something in theworld, they'll pay really well
for it.
Well, you have to go learnabout it.
(05:27):
So I've sort of always used thisto find things that are true
for me.
I care about team beyondanything.
I care about who I work withmore than anything.
I knock on wood, but in 30years I've spent less than two
of those years working with orfor people that don't excite me
to get out of bed every morning,kind of thing.
So I think, as I have been aging, I keep looking at you know how
are these same criterias atplay, like could I cure cancer?
(05:51):
No, can I make cool,entertaining products that
really important and smartdoctors can use when they get
home at night and they just needa break from their difficult
days?
Yes, I can, right.
So I always try to sort ofalign what am I good at with
those things?
And, candidly, as my kids havebecome teenagers in fact, my
youngest is off to school atRISD now I've time again to do
(06:15):
startups right.
I couldn't do a startup when mykids were eight because, a they
need me more and B it's a wholedifferent game and we're all
having a lot of fun and playinggames and doing things like that
, right, but now they're in highschool and their time need of
mine is a lot less and I reallylike to show them also like hey,
(06:35):
sometimes you don't get a job,sometimes you make a job.
Right, so I pull all this stuffin.
I know that's a convolutedanswer, but that's how my silly
brain works.
Jackie Pelegrin (06:45):
That's okay, I love it and it sounds like, as
you were mentioning all thosethings.
I relate to that so wellbecause I've been in
instructional design in highereducation, did a little bit of
corporate for a while, for goingon 18 years.
I've been in higher educationand then in this field,
instructional designspecifically for almost 15 years
(07:05):
and I never imagined I'd beteaching college courses now for
four years and then I didn'tthink I would start a podcast
two years ago.
But yeah, it's amazing and I'malmost in my fifties myself.
So it's like, wow, you don'tthink those things are going to
come along.
And then you realize, wow,there's a need I need to fill
and let me just do it right, letme just start it up and see
(07:28):
where it goes right.
You just never know where it'lltake you, and I think that's the
beauty of it is that so manypeople want those assurances and
those things that they know.
Oh okay, I know I'll make moneywith this and I'm like, oh no,
if you're just doing it for themoney, then where's the passion,
right there?
Has to I think the passion hasto come first, and then the
money follows it and and that'sthe reward right For having that
(07:53):
passion and meeting thepeople's needs meeting the world
needs.
Jeremy Toeman (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
You know, I, I and I reallywant to to the point of what you
were just saying.
I really want to also show mykids like and I really want to
to the point of what you werejust saying I really want to
also show my kids like look, ofcourse the quote unquote normal
path is you go get a job, etcetera.
But by showing them and like,actually it's not necessarily
get a job, maybe it's make a jobright, maybe it's make not only
(08:26):
a job for you, like make a jobfor others right.
The moment I go fundraising, youknow, and I successfully close
around, I can now hire people orhire companies or hire services
, which is creating even more ofan effect downstream.
And I really like to think thatyou know, the venture capital
money is there for entrepreneurslike me and you to go unlock
and bring back into the worldand create jobs.
And sometimes we make it andsometimes we don't.
But I love that they get to seedifferent ways of how life
(08:48):
could be, because, sure, gettinga job is the direct and easy
path and maybe that's whatthey'll all do and maybe not,
and so it's good to show themthe different ways.
Jackie Pelegrin (09:00):
You can be Right, because they all don't
have to fit the same mold andall go the same path.
They're all unique individualsand one may decide I don't have
to fit the same mold and all gothe same path.
They're all unique individuals,and so one may decide I don't
want to go to college, like yousaid.
I want to make a job and I wantto be an entrepreneur.
That's the great thing abouttoday, with all the technology
evolving and changing, is thatthere's more opportunities now
than what you and I had when wewere in high school.
(09:22):
We had, I remember, in highschool, having a pager and no
cell phone.
And I remember talking to somehigh school kids and they're
like, what's a pager?
And I'm like, oh my gosh, theyhaven't even heard of a pager.
But I'm like, yeah, that's justthe way this generation is.
There's just some things thatthey don't.
It doesn't click with thembecause they are not familiar
with it.
Jeremy Toeman (09:47):
So it's funny.
Yeah, I wonder, though, I'llbet, I'll bet, I'll bet you
there's a market today forstarting a new pager company.
I'm not kidding, yeah, have youbeen following that?
Like uh, cause it went throughour family is that teenagers are
now seeking out digital camerasagain because they want to be
able to take pictures in adisconnected way, right?
So my daughter had one atsummer camp, and so now I'm
thinking I'm like wow, what youknow, you brought a pager.
I haven't thought about that.
Well, I'll bet you you could gopretty trendy with Jenny for a
(10:09):
little while on, like hipsterpagers, you know.
Jackie Pelegrin (10:13):
Yeah, because it was.
It was such a popular thingwhen I was, I think, a sophomore
in high school and I was like Iwant to pay my dad's, like,
okay, you want a pager, work forit, go, go, do it go, you know.
And I was like, and it wasfunny because it was all,
because it was the trend, thatwas what all my friends had.
But we didn't have.
We had to actually go to a payphone.
Right, have money, go to a payphone to call somebody.
(10:34):
So it's funny how.
And when I told them that thatthat's what we had to do,
they're like, wow, that soundscomplicated and I'm like that's
just the way it was.
Know, we didn't know anythingdifferent back then.
So it's funny.
Jeremy Toeman (10:45):
We didn't know better.
We didn't know different.
We didn't, but those were thechoices.
Jackie Pelegrin (10:49):
You know Exactly, yep, you were just
given something and you wentwith it and yeah, it's funny.
I like that.
So what I love, too, is you'reworking on some fascinating
projects using AI to helpcreators and marketers tell
stories in a new ways, which isgreat, because my background is
in marketing, so I relate tothis.
So, from your perspective,what's the biggest creative
(11:09):
opportunity AI opens up forthings like video creation, and
what's one challenge that westill need to solve in that area
?
Jeremy Toeman (11:54):
this is again one of those.
I think if we had been talkinga month ago, I'd have a
different kind of answer.
We're at the point where Iwould say you know, there's
always this going quote of likewhen was the best time to start
doing X?
It was like 10 years ago.
When's the next best time?
Today?
I would say we are right nowentered this phase where, if you
(12:14):
are anywhere related tomarketing whether you're an
individual entrepreneur and youneed to market yourself or some
huge company somewhere video hasto be part of the strategy.
Right?
We know that the I mean I canjust bore you with stats right
now, but any stat on like isvideo marketing important?
Is going to be basically likeuh-huh.
(12:34):
So I would say this is the timeto be experimenting with the
various flavors and tools.
So, first and foremost, there'smultiple categories of where AI
can help you with video In ourcase, for example, and there are
other tools like Descript, veedand others, where you have
content and you need to figureout how to make an ad with that
(12:56):
content.
Well, you can upload or createthat content in those platforms,
do some basic editing, push itlive.
So, video editing.
I think the next category isaround AI and video generation,
and this is where you can say Iwant a blonde hair, blue eyed
boy riding a unicorn throughTimes Square on a busy afternoon
(13:18):
, or something like that, andmake a clip of something that
never existed before.
And while a lot of that ispurely for the fun of it,
there's also a lot of pragmaticuse.
So I will reference Augie, butthere are many other ways to do
this.
Inside Augie.
You can go to our generatefeature and, for example, upload
.
Actually, I was doing a projectfor a customer and we uploaded a
(13:38):
picture of one of their dressesand then I said make it look
like the model's spinning aroundshowing off the dress she's
wearing from a still picture ofa woman wearing a dress on an
all white background.
And it did, and it looksamazing.
And, yes, you can findartifacts and sometimes her hair
(13:59):
flows in the opposite directionto her body.
So it's not perfect.
Three more prompts later and itwill be.
And so what I would say is youdon't have to make stuff like
Kid and the Unicorn in TimesSquare.
You can take your existingassets now and start bringing
them to life in a different way.
Right?
You have a simple product.
I was doing a thing for a spicerub like a steak rub, and the
(14:25):
picture was a pile of spices.
I said, have a hand, siftthrough them, and it sprinkled
them all around and it lookssuper realistic.
So this is a great time to beexperimenting.
I will say your mileage may vary.
You will probably spend a lotmore money on tokens and such
than you might want to at thisstage.
So it is definitely in a beready for experimentation.
(14:48):
But whatever you're doing, soagain, if you have lots of your
existing content, use AI editingtools to help trim them down.
If you have no content, use AIgenerative tools to make
something from nothing.
But no matter what, experimentwith getting yourself on one of
these platforms.
If you want to do influencerstyle videos, start with CapCut
it's amazing, right.
(15:08):
Or even the basic TikTok orReels app You're out of excuses
now, right?
If you don't want to be onscreen, use Augie.
Make a headless video.
If you don't want to recordyour own voice maybe you're not
like the two of us and don'twant your voice out there on
things use a synthetic voice.
Ours uses 11 labs for that, sothere's so many options now Dive
(15:28):
in, play around with them.
The cool part is, most of themhave free trials or limited free
packages or services.
So I would say this is the timeto be experimenting.
Jackie Pelegrin (15:38):
That's great, Jeremy.
I love that.
Have you worked with anyinstitutions or any in the
education space, like withtraining, professional
development types of things too?
Because I could see thatworking well with education to
create training videos and makethem better and reinvent those
too.
Jeremy Toeman (15:56):
That's right.
We do have a lot of those uses.
We have a lot of internal commsteams that use Augie Also to
take things like you know.
Let's say, the CEO gives akeynote at a conference and has
a 45 minute speech.
Well, you know, just like youand I chop up highlights from
our podcasts, so do social mediateams, for mega companies need
(16:17):
to do the same thing.
So there's plenty of use thatwe're seeing.
We also have some educationaluse happening.
We have a couple of film classesat a variety of high schools
that we've given them free useof Augie to go help their
students learn the basics ofthings like storyboarding, which
Augie does automatically.
Again, not with the goal of themdoing everything with AI, but
(16:40):
with a goal of themunderstanding how to experiment
with storytelling before, forexample, filming.
Right, the most expensive partof making any video is filming,
and so if you can shortcut thator pre-optimize it using, like
we use a Getty stock assets tobuild your prototype, so if you
can see like, oh, I want to have, you know, a man and a woman
(17:03):
walking along the beach atsunset and then you know they're
going to go off and play in thewater and the dog comes, and
that's going to be my.
You know, think about everypharma ad, right, you know, if
you can, you can prototype thewhole thing and save all that
money before going down toactually shoot.
We even had a film student asan intern last summer making a
(17:23):
historical film all on top ofthe side of Augie.
So we've always made itaccessible to educational
facilities so that we like theidea that businesses can pay for
it and educational use can befor free, so that we can help
support other people who want toget their stories out.
That's always been just sort ofreally important to me.
Jackie Pelegrin (17:42):
Wow, that's great.
You know you mentioned thatwith that example of the film
industry.
It's funny because ininstructional design we do
prototyping, we do storyboarding, we do that kind of same thing,
so that that way, like you said, you don't so when we go to
create the e-learning or sometype of micro learning, we're
not spending all that time inthe development stage and
(18:06):
producing it and then having togo back and make a bunch of
changes because it costs time.
It costs a lot of money to timeis money, right.
Jeremy Toeman (18:13):
So time is money yeah.
Jackie Pelegrin (18:15):
So we actually do, and I'm teaching a class
right now about that very thingand it's about organizational
and workplace development.
So it's all about how OKR islike objectives and key results
and how to.
How do you help a company dothat?
But one of the things they'redoing is they're having to do a
prototype and do a storyboardand then later on in the course.
(18:37):
So this, I'm in top, we're intopic two right now and then in
topic five they actually buildthe e-learning module.
So it's for a company, it's fora fake company, but it's kind
of neat because it gets themthat opportunity to really dive
in and do that.
But I could see your, yourplatform working really well for
that industry too, for learningand development, instructional
(18:57):
design, those that are in that,because it's a growing.
I don't know if you know this,Jeremy, but instructional design
is all across, everywhere.
It's in military, higher ed,corporate, nonprofit, so anytime
you hear someone sayinglearning and development and I
do this, that's kind of that'swhat I do.
So it's pretty fascinating.
Yeah, so there's a lot ofparallels too between you know,
(19:21):
uh, the creative fields, Um, soit's neat how we do.
We do this kind of thosesimilar things that they do in
the creative arts as well.
So it's kind of cool.
Jeremy Toeman (19:31):
I mean, it is creative, right, like I think
about.
You know, half of the stuff thatwe'll watch on the YouTube is
an instructional video of somekind Whether I'm being edutained
by a Mark Rober or whatever orsome random channel that you
follow, half the time we're onYouTube getting some kind of
instruction on something.
So I could easily see thatdemand.
(19:52):
Actually, we had been workingwith a company that does, um, uh
, industrial machinery and theywanted to take their instruction
manual and effectively bring itto life, and so they've been
doing that in augie.
And so, um, they took, yeah,they they scanned in, or I guess
they already had the digital,so that doesn't make sense, but
they uploaded all of the framesof each page of the manual and
(20:16):
then use generative tools to.
You know, if it was like it waslike a wireframe you know one
of those like wireframe stylesand they just had, you know they
, they're still doing it, butthey have, like the guys walking
, not just standing or pickingup the ladder, you know, so you
can bring those things to lifein a really interesting way.
Jackie Pelegrin (20:33):
That's great, and hopefully they've got an
instructional designer that willlook at that later, because
that's one of the reallyinterested in doing consulting
work and things like that,because then I can kind of help
(21:01):
bring you know companies alongand say, okay, great, you want
to do that, but let's make sureis it going to still work for
learners still gonna?
Is it still gonna make the sameimpact for them?
Yeah, so I love that.
That's great.
Yeah, so you mentioned TikTokearlier.
So with your work touchingplatforms like TikTok and Adobe,
we know there's a constant pushto create faster and smarter.
(21:21):
Even I get that in work all thetime.
It's like get that out faster.
We wanted it yesterday, right.
Jeremy Toeman (21:27):
Right.
Jackie Pelegrin (21:28):
How do you balance the drive for efficiency
while making sure that humanand emotional side of
storytelling doesn't get lost inthe mix?
Jeremy Toeman (21:37):
storytelling doesn't get lost in the mix.
That's a really good question.
I think the first statement I'dmake is when we think about
video, I think a lot of usespecially if you're anywhere
near our age groups, I'd say, ifyou're actually probably about
35 plus video probably carriesnot a stigma but a certain
weightiness to it.
We feel like, oh, if you wantto make a video, that's going to
be work, even if you're doinglike an Insta or LinkedIn or a
(22:02):
TikTok post.
And I think if you're muchyounger, you don't feel that way
because it's so.
You know, you grew up, you'renative in that world.
So the first thing I'd say isyou got to stop thinking like we
think, which is?
It's better to have more outthere that is, for lack of a
better phrase good enough thanto make sure you're only doing
(22:24):
one perfect video a year.
Right?
The reality check is most postsare forgotten.
Most posts are to feed thealgorithm.
Right, and it's not to sayphone it in every time.
It is to say you don't have tobe, uh, christopher nolan on
every tiktok post.
You don't have to work it toperfection.
(22:45):
Depends a lot on what yourbrand is and what your products
are.
Right, sometimes good enough isplaying along with a meme, or
sometimes good enough is justone.
You know I I this will be areally weird off topic I'm a big
fan of this craft brewerycalled tree house.
Well, they created a channelcalled tree house releases and
all it is is whenever there's anew beer they've got maybe just
(23:07):
a simple picture of it, maybe alittle clip of the brewer who
knows.
But I like that way of thinking.
It's like you don't have to beperfect with every piece of
content you put out there.
However, those algorithms don'tcare about your feelings.
You know what I mean.
Like, those algorithms expectto be fed and so, more important
(23:28):
than the quality of your video,I mean again, don't put out
garbage and please don't put outAI slop Augie is not an AI slop
product.
Don't put out AI slop Augie isnot an AI slop product, but
figure out a cadence and stickto it and then think about
increasing it over time.
It's almost like working out.
Just go to the gym once a week.
You don't have to be whateveron day one, in fact.
(23:51):
Go to the gym, go for a walk.
If you didn't do anythingyesterday, go for a walk today.
Just do something to show thatprogress Right.
And the second thing I'd say,by the way, is then don't start
until you're ready.
Don't start, and then, sevenweeks later, put a second post
and then five weeks later yougot another post.
Get ready, figure out like,okay, our brand's going to post
(24:11):
three times a week.
One of those posts will be themaking of, one of those posts
will be interview with thefounder, and one of those posts
will be a thoughtful way ofusing our product or something
like that.
You don't have to go that crazy.
You can in fact go to ChatGPTand say here's what I do.
I need an idea for a lowfriction, tiktok cadence and
(24:33):
suggested series of content.
Like you know, what I'll say toanyone listening is you got no
excuse anymore to not beexperimenting somewhere right,
absolutely Don't worry.
You know the water's fine, Comeon in.
Jackie Pelegrin (24:48):
Exactly.
Yeah, I haven't been divinginto video yet, but that's one
thing I want to do because I'veheard that that helps with your
like you said the algorithms,youtube.
It helps get the get you outthere a little bit more and more
visibility.
And it's interesting because Istarted I actually did that with
ChatGPT because I wanted to doa marketing promo for four weeks
(25:09):
and I was like, hey, chatgpthere, it knows enough about my
podcast and it knows that I'mwriting a book too.
So it's kind of funny because,like, well, yeah, you can do
this and subtly promote this.
And so it gave me, jeremy, awhole four week marketing
platform of what I could dohere's what you can post and do
it like this week on Designingwith Love and do like a, you
(25:31):
know, a post with it and I useCanva for all my artwork.
So I did that and I asked itfor ideas on what I could put on
that to make it so it wasn'toverwhelming, with too much text
, right and, to you know,visually appealing, without too
much information.
And then it said well, then youcould do do that on Sunday and
then do a poll every Wednesday.
(25:51):
And I asked her for some ideasand it just yeah, it just laid
it all out for me and I keptprompting it and saying, okay,
yeah, can you revise this alittle bit?
This is not quite what I waslooking for.
And it just I kept working withthe tool and it just all of a
sudden I had a and it was likehere, do you want me to, you
know, put your marketing?
And I just yeah, I was like,wow, this is great.
So I've got it all running andit's all ready to go and
(26:15):
everything.
So it's.
This is the second week it'sbeen going and I just put all
the posts and the polls in thereand then just schedule them, so
I don't have to do anythingevery week.
It's all ready to go.
So it's great.
And I'm like, if this is reallysuccessful, I may actually do
this on a regular basis, becauseif people love it this week on,
you know, designing with love,I'll keep it going.
(26:35):
So it's great.
Jeremy Toeman (26:37):
It's really easy.
Yeah, I'll give you here.
I pulled up in the tab reallyquick just to get a number I to
support this sort of thesis thatJackie's giving everybody.
I, for my podcast, which Istarted in April with no real
promotion, I post on LinkedIn.
In fact, I don't posteverything on LinkedIn because
otherwise my feed will just looklike this constant self-promo
(26:57):
thing.
So I only post sometimes andI'm not active on social media.
By the way, I'm not anInstagrammer.
I gave up on Twitter back whenit was Twitter and I'm just not
interested.
No disrespect to that entireworld, it's just not what I want
to do.
And so I have decided, though,for this podcast, I created
(27:18):
platforms for it, so it's gotits own Insta, tiktok and
YouTube accounts, and I startedposting the clips not just to
Instagram and TikTok, but Istarted putting them on YouTube
Shorts.
I will tell you, I have clipswith zero when I started, with
zero folders, and I still onlyhave a couple, I think a couple
of dozen.
I have several posts now thathave hundreds of views, nothing
(27:39):
to promote them.
They build the audiencethemselves, they're sending me
subscribers, and all I'm doingis picking good snippets from my
podcast, obviously editing anAugie, and that's, by the way,
part of my excuse as a busystartup guy is how do I do a
podcast?
Well, it's like they say eatingthe dog food.
(28:00):
It's like that for me.
Jackie Pelegrin (28:01):
Right, exactly.
Yeah, I love that, and that'swhat I've been doing too is
using those shorts and postingthem.
And uh, two weeks ago today Iactually I had uh seven
subscribers on YouTube.
I haven't looked today to seeyet, but now, two weeks later, I
think I have almost 300subscribers and some of my
shorts have and again, they'revideo shorts but they don't have
(28:30):
any, you know.
You know cause, you know thisis audio only.
So Riverside will take those.
Uh, the AI and it'll, you know,bring those video shorts to me,
which is great, um, but yeah,it's, it's, it's got the video,
but it's just a background, soit's, there's no face to it.
But some of them have, I think,almost 1,500 views or something
like that.
So I'm like, wow, that'samazing.
Jeremy Toeman (28:47):
That's great.
Jackie Pelegrin (28:48):
Yeah, oh, those little things right that you
can do to really bring that upand be able to bring more
visibility to what you're doing.
And then it helps not only yourpodcast but it helps your brand
, it helps your influence andyour credibility, everything.
So it's a.
It's a win-win across the board.
I love it.
That's great.
Jeremy Toeman (29:09):
Love that.
Jackie Pelegrin (29:10):
Yeah, that's, that's wonderful.
So, as we wrap up, what aresome top tips or advice for
listeners who are looking tolaunch a startup like what you
have, or getting into AI plusvideo, as we mentioned earlier?
Jeremy Toeman (29:20):
Well I'd say, if you've never, if you've never
done a startup before at all,and you're looking to do
venture-funded style startup, inother words, we could argue
that any business is a startup,right, me doing my podcast is a
startup.
But just for this moment, ifwe'll agree that what we mean by
starting a startup is somethingwhere you intend to raise
(29:42):
venture capital or hopefullyyou're so profitable you don't
even need that but you're goingto build an organization and
form a corporation, do all thethings and, you know, maybe
build a lot of tech to go launchsomething.
The only thing I want to tellpeople is that it's so much
harder than you've ever expectedanything to be in.
Ever have a co-founder, no solofounders.
(30:04):
I tried it once way long ago,regretted that instantly and
ever since I've loved havingsomeone else out there to cry on
their shoulders when they needto or be there for theirs when
they need it.
So startups are just plain hardright, it's a lot of work, it's
soul sucking and also, by theway, it's the best thing ever.
Jackie Pelegrin (30:27):
And.
Jeremy Toeman (30:27):
I was once asked.
I gave a speech on this exacttopic and someone asked me a
question like Jeremy, you seemto have endless energy for this.
Where does it come from?
And my answer was I don't know.
And that's what I would say is,if you don't know where your
energy comes from, but it's justalways there, you've probably
got some of what it's going totake, because you're going to
need lots of energy and thereality check is not a lot of
(30:50):
things.
Refill that bucket a lot of thetime.
Right when we have wins, youknow they're huge, but sometimes
it can be a long time betweenwins.
You know most of the articlespeople will read on a startup
are about the successful ones.
The articles people will readon a startup are about the
successful ones.
There's not as much writtenabout the.
There's some written on theglorious failures, but there's
not a lot of the 90% ofbusinesses that really just
(31:12):
don't take off, and there'snothing wrong with that, and
I've been part of those.
You know it's part of thefabric of this, of this whole
ecosystem.
You're going to fail atsomething, right?
I think it's a lot about makingsure you're just really ready
for that.
So I have a huge amount ofthoughts on like, before you
start a startup, on getting intoAI video, like as soon as you
(31:34):
finish this episode and like andsubscribe and all those cool
things.
Go try these products.
Okay, ours is Augiestudio, butgo try Runway.
Go try Veo, go try Opus, go tryVeed, go try these things out.
Figure out what's the right onefor your product, goods,
service, brand and play withthem, and if it's not doing the
(31:56):
thing you need, try the next one.
My biggest tip, though, is likefigure out what you think you
need going into them, becausewe're all a little different.
Don't come to Augie expectingrunway.
We're not runway.
Go to runway.
It's great so, but no excuses,y'all Go try something.
It's too much fun to play withthis tech to not be playing with
(32:16):
this tech.
Jackie Pelegrin (32:17):
Right, I like the advice you give not going
into it blindly.
Having a plan of action,knowing what is my goal, what
are, what is, what are theoutcomes I want?
Right, it's what we call ininstructional design.
It's a backward design approach.
So instead, of starting at thebeginning, we start at the end
and we see what's our goal,what's our outcome, what is that
, that end of the road that wewant?
(32:39):
And then we work from thebackward, we work backwards.
So we do that sometimes incurriculum design, because
sometimes we'll start at thebeginning where we're like, okay
, we have to look at topics,objectives, and.
But then the subject matterexperts aren't sure where they
what the, where they want tostart, and they start to
struggle with it.
So I say to my curriculumdevelopers, let's do backwards
(33:00):
design and let's start at theend and ask them what do you
want them to accomplish at theend of this course or at the end
of this topic?
And then they're like, oh, Iwant them to do this.
And we're like, okay, great,Now let's build it from there
and then we'll.
Then we'll put the objectivesin and we'll put those together.
So that's kind of how I look atcreative work too.
Right, you have to sometimes dothat unconventional approach to
(33:23):
it.
Jeremy Toeman (33:23):
When we have companies come to us to get
started at Augie because wealways do a handheld onboarding
they often will ask well, wheredo we start?
And our first question isn't.
I was like that's the wrongquestion.
The first question is what doyou want to create?
And if most people will say,I'm not quite sure.
So here's my tip for anyonewho's not sure what kind of
video to create, or anyone who'snot sure what kind of video to
(33:43):
create, go find a video you like.
Right?
If you're making a let's callit an ad for your product, Well,
go find an ad for some otherproduct.
It doesn't have to be in yourcategory, in fact, preferably
not.
That you like.
You know.
It could be an ad for pants ora car or a beer or whatever.
It doesn't matter.
But if there's a style like oh,start to think about it.
I like a witty voice, narrationin the background, or I want no
(34:06):
narration, or I want a persontalking at the camera, or I
don't want that.
Do I want you know?
Give some thought like what isthe video you like?
What is the thing thattriggered you to positively to
buy a product, good or service?
Then start building toward thatend, right?
Uh, if you see something that'sshowing lots and lots of cool
(34:28):
CGI that's showing, you know,like if you watched any of the
recent Apple's coverage the thiswas the week they announced the
Apple iPhone, air and et ceteraall of their videos were these
really cool, like they explodedout what's inside the product
and like lots of really niftyuse of, I assume, cgi or AI, et
cetera.
Well, that's going to be a lotof work.
You know that that's going totake a chunk of time.
(34:49):
If, on the other hand, you wanta video of you know a woman
walking down the street goinginto your favorite restaurant,
that's pretty easy to recreate.
Let's go do that.
Jackie Pelegrin (34:58):
Right, yeah, and see what, yeah, what your.
I like that because that's alsowhere marketing comes in right
Looking at what's what are thetimes.
We call it benchmarking.
We look to see where the othersimilar uh, types of products,
like you said, or services, likeyou said, doesn't even have to
be in the same industry, butsomething where, yeah, it sparks
(35:18):
your interest and yourattention.
I love that.
That's great.
You know, cause I like vintagestuff.
I think that's that's reallyneat, to kind of go back in time
.
So, who knows, maybe for mypodcast I can do something like
that, and you know, so that'sneat.
Do you see, even like withpodcasts, do you see that
becoming something where because, as you know, we can monetize
these podcasts?
(35:38):
There's so many ways to do it?
I'm I'm in the midst offinishing up my first book and
it's based on one of the mostpopular podcasts I think it's
number three on my top five now,because they shift and change,
right, it's always an evolvingtype of thing where some will
stay at the top for a while andthen others will come because
you're always releasing.
(35:59):
But yeah, it's kind of neatbecause it came from that of
just an idea of Buzzsprout sendsout a weekly newsletter and
they said here's ways tomonetize your podcast.
And one of them was write abook.
And I'm like, wow, okay, can Ido this?
And I was like, yeah, just jumpin and do it.
So it's been a pretty coolexperience to take that content
(36:20):
and put it in book form.
So, yeah, that's pretty neat, sodo you kind of see those types
of things happening where we cancause I'll have to promote
right the book and get it outthere, and so I can see video
being a great way to promotethose types of things and get
that visual appeal to it.
Jeremy Toeman (36:37):
Right, you could upload to Augie a picture of the
front cover of your book, theback cover of your book and
yourself, and give it the simpledescription that you're already
using in your listing and saygo, and in 45 seconds you'll
have three video ads for yourbook.
All that leverage your assets,plus access to something like 95
(36:57):
million stock assets from GettyImages, all with licensing
included.
So I would say, yeah, yourscenario is exactly the one we
want.
I also want you uploading yourepisodes and turning them into
video podcasts using some of ourtools.
So I'd love to see where youtake this thing and I can't wait
to see the book when it comes.
Jackie Pelegrin (37:16):
Wow, that's great.
I love it.
Yeah, I'm almost at the end.
I have to look through it againand then I've got a.
I'm trying to decide where Iwant to take it as far as if I
want to go.
I'm thinking hybrid publishingwould be good.
I'd like to self publish, butthat's a lot of work.
I don't know if I want to gothere.
I did that.
Jeremy Toeman (37:32):
I made a, I wrote a.
I self published a children'sbook a couple of years ago Now.
To be fair, though, I wasn'treally focused on, I wasn't
trying to monetize it, I wasdonating all the profits, but
I'm glad I did it, I'm glad Iwent through the experience.
But if I could find an, agentor a publisher or something.
Jackie Pelegrin (37:51):
Next time I certainly would.
Yeah, it makes it a little biteasier.
So I thought hybrid publishingwould be good, because then I
can still have that control overthe content in some ways and
not have to give it all over tothem, right?
But we'll see where it goes.
I mean, there's always thatpossibility.
So I've got a proposal set andready to go and again, ai helped
me with that too.
I just used it as a framework tosay, okay, I've never done this
(38:14):
before.
It was my first time.
Where do I start?
What do I do?
I said, what does a proposallook like?
And it just gave me an outlineof what to put together and I
was like, wow.
And then it gave me differenttrends and stats and of course,
it was three years old.
So I was like, yeah, I got togo in there and actually do my
own research and update thestats, because the stats were a
little bit.
(38:34):
I was like I don't want topresent something that's three
years old.
So I went and updated my statsand my trends to make sure it
was current.
But it was nice because it gaveme a good framework and I'm
like, okay, this is great.
I'm not starting from scratchand I'm utilizing something
that's out there that can helpme with it.
So, yeah, I agree with you.
(38:55):
I think it's great.
Ai is really changing a lot ofthat, and I'm not copying and
pasting by any means, bututilizing it to really take what
I already have and just put itin a different format.
So it's great.
That's what it's great at.
Jeremy Toeman (39:10):
I look at it, it's like the ultimate leveler,
upper right, and you do with itwhat makes sense and what is
strategic, like it's going tolet you write a proposal that
you've never done before.
It's going to let me do thesame thing, right, or whatever.
You know, we, we wanted toapply for a grant.
I'm like I don't know whatgrant writing is supposed to
sound like.
I know how I write and I knowhow writing a pitch deck works.
(39:33):
I know how this works, so I'mable to use AI to up-level
myself with the thing I wasn'tgreat at before.
But you're also right.
Like, please, everybody, editthat stuff.
You know I've actually switchedmodes recently.
In fact, I put a post onLinkedIn today because my
co-founder and I vibe coded thegame.
By the way, talk about thingsyou can do with AI.
On Wednesday, we had an idea.
We were playtesting itWednesday night, putting on the
(39:57):
final touches Thursday andpublished it on Friday, and in
the post I wrote my own LinkedInpost, of course.
But what I like to do now is Itake the whole thing, I go to
ChatGPT and I give it a prompt,almost like this this is a post
I'm putting on LinkedIn.
Don't make any edits or changesfor the sake of making edits or
changes, please identify for meeither key grammatical flaws
(40:19):
that might make me soundbuffoonish, or poor phrasings
that could sound moreprofessional, but at the same
time, don't lose any of my toneand do not rewrite my post and
then, instead of getting here'sa garbage version of your post
back, I get a list of.
Here are some specific bullets.
So, for example, I had thephrase I still remember this.
(40:40):
The phrasing I used is we werelooking for a thing to work on.
Well, chad Javidi said it mightsound more professional to say
we were looking for a project towork on.
And it's true, right, that'scasual talk versus sort of
semi-business talk.
Jackie Pelegrin (40:52):
Right.
Jeremy Toeman (40:53):
And so now it's again.
It's back into the place whereI think AI works the best.
It's helping me, not doing itfor me.
I don't want things done for me.
I do want help at my sides atall times.
So it's a little how I thinkabout it.
Jackie Pelegrin (41:08):
I like it.
Yeah, it's refining what youalready have and just making it
flow better.
Yeah, that's true, because,like with my book, I had all the
chapters.
It was starting as top 10instructional design models and
theories.
Then I expanded it as I starteddoing more solo episodes, so
now it went from 12 chapters to20.
So I was like whoa bigger.
But it was funny because I putall the models and theories in
(41:30):
alphabetical order, thinkingthat would be the easiest thing.
So I started with 4CID, addy,went all the way down in
alphabetical order and then Iput all the chapters, the titles
of the chapters, into chat GPTand I said, hey, I'm writing a
book.
Here's the chapters.
Do you think this is a goodorder?
And chat GPT said Well, youknow what you might want to
start with the one, thefoundational models and theories
(41:53):
first, and then progress and goto the more complicated ones,
for CID is more complicated.
So I'm like, oh, my goodness,that's a great idea.
So I switched things around andthen I put it back in.
I said, okay, how does thislook?
And then it said, yeah, you'redoing better, make some tweaks
here.
And it was like revelation.
I was like, wow, I don't knowif I would have thought of that,
(42:15):
I maybe would have down theroad, maybe with a publisher,
but I think it's more polished,yeah, and so if I do go to a
publisher, I'll be like here yougo, here's all my stuff.
If they look at the proposaland they love it and they're
like, yeah, the sample chapterlooks good and we like where
you're going with it, and in theproposal it's got the chapters,
(42:36):
but then it's got informationabout each chapter, just like a
sentence or two, just to givethem insight into it.
So I'm like, yeah, so I feellike it's a lot more refined and
ready to go.
So that way it's less work onthe backend, right, and maybe it
can get published faster too.
So AI is great.
Jeremy Toeman (42:54):
Yeah Well, you just did some of the things an
editor's going to do, right.
They're going to be like JackieI love this book, but I think
it would work better this way.
You've just done that work forthem, right.
They'll still come at you withthings.
One of my other favorite thingsthat I've given it's actually
now in my permanent instructionsfor ChachiBT is long story
short.
No sycophantism.
(43:14):
Don't try to suck up to me.
Don't tell me it's great.
If it's not great, you'll haveto make me feel good.
I got other people for thatgreat.
Jackie Pelegrin (43:22):
You don't have to make me feel good, I got
other people for that, right.
Yeah, exactly, I love that.
That's great.
So before we wrap up, are thereany other any more tips or
advice that you can think of?
Jeremy Toeman (43:36):
I would say the next thing to be yeah, I would
think I want to suggest thatpeople go off and start
experimenting a little with.
You know, once you start, ifbasic chat, to be D, is sort of
like your 1.0 and then you'redoing things like AI, video and
stuff which is probably like a3.0.
I would also go suggest peoplestart experimenting things with
what?
If you've heard the term vibecoding?
Yes, so these are apps likeReplit and Lovable and Cursor
that let you describe an ideaand build a product from it, and
(43:59):
I think it's just a good brainexercise to be able to just, you
know, it's like, it's like Legofor grownups in a way, right
Like whether it's building youan app or a productivity hack or
a game, like I just did, orwhatever, but it's it.
It lets you like.
It's like flexing some set ofmuscles you don't even realize
you have.
I think it's just a good kindof brain pattern exercise as
(44:24):
much as anything else designersand all the production people
(44:46):
that they have over there.
Jackie Pelegrin (44:47):
But it's really cool because they're utilizing
AI and we just got a demo aboutthat with vibe coding, where
they're utilizing that with alltheir people there, and I'm like
wow.
So it was amazing to see itused in curriculum and just
taking complex things likescience, engineering, those
types of things and bringing itto life in so many new ways.
So it's great.
(45:07):
I love it, yeah.
Jeremy Toeman (45:09):
Well, you can see the one we built.
I'm sorry, we built a moviepongapp.
If you're a movie fan, we builta game it's called movie pong
where basically you go back andforth naming movies and actors
who are in them and you're sortof trying to it's like we call
(45:30):
it pong.
You're trying to pong youropponent by if they, if they
name an actor in a movie and youcan name another movie with the
same two actors.
Jackie Pelegrin (45:34):
Then you get a point kind of thing.
Jeremy Toeman (45:34):
So it'll probably be massively evolved by the
time this episode drops Cause.
We're just sort of wingingthrough it day by day, but
looking for feedback, look foranyone who wants to experiment
with it.
Jackie Pelegrin (45:43):
I would love to , because I remember being in
grade school and that Pong gameon what was it?
Atari?
Yeah, it was on Atari, right,the Pong game?
Yes, it was on Atari, and itwas just the two white
rectangles and then it had theball, and you would go back and
forth.
Oh, my goodness.
And then I love movies.
So is it all types of genresand all ranges like?
Jeremy Toeman (46:05):
Yeah, it's, oh, it's, it's all the movies.
We have a database of all themovies.
So yeah, movie pongapp.
Jackie Pelegrin (46:13):
I'm going to look that up and I'm sure a lot
of people will look that up.
That's great.
I love it.
Thank you so much, jeremy.
I appreciate you sharing yourinsights today.
Your experiences, your tips andexpertise are definitely going
to inspire my listeners, and Iknow that for sure.
So I appreciate it.
Jeremy Toeman (46:26):
Thanks, Jackie.
It was great to be here.
Thanks for the greatconversation and great questions
.
Jackie Pelegrin (46:31):
Absolutely yes, and AI it helped me do that, so
I can thank AI for that.
But of course I tweaked them,so I love that Great.
I look forward to having youback on the show again soon.
Jeremy Toeman (46:43):
Sounds wonderful.
We'll have a great rest of yourday.
Jackie Pelegrin (46:46):
You too, thank you.
Thank you for taking some timeto listen to this podcast
episode today.
Your support means the world tome.
If you'd like to help keep thepodcast going, you can share it
with a friend or colleague,leave a heartfelt review or
offer a monetary contribution.
Every act of support, big orsmall, makes a difference and
(47:10):
I'm truly thankful for you.
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