April 8, 2025 • 45 mins
What happens when you combine cutting-edge AI with proven learning science? Sasha Seymour, a former UNC basketball walk-on turned entrepreneur, reveals how his company Learn to Win is revolutionizing workforce training across industries.
The traditional approach to training—passive slide decks, outdated manuals, and knowledge stuck in subject matter experts' heads—simply doesn't deliver results in today's rapidly evolving workplace. Learn to Win's AI-powered platform transforms static content into interactive learning experiences that dramatically accelerate time-to-productivity while reducing costly errors and turnover.
Sasha shares remarkable success stories from diverse environments: how Nolan Transportation Group cut onboarding time from six weeks to two while reducing new hire churn by over 30%; how Michigan Football used the platform hours before winning their national championship; and how manufacturing teams at Ping Golf maintain consistent quality standards across global facilities in multiple languages.
With over $34 million in funding and clients ranging from the Seattle Seahawks to the Department of Defense (where they're certified for secret-level training), Learn to Win is addressing what Sasha calls "the last mile" of training—the critical, company-specific knowledge that can't be purchased off-the-shelf.
Perhaps most fascinating is how advances in AI are transforming the company's capabilities. Soon, training leaders will simply provide source documents and desired outcomes, with AI handling everything from content creation to competency validation.
As workforces become increasingly deskless and distributed post-COVID, this approach to knowledge transfer represents not just an improvement on traditional methods, but a fundamental reimagining of how organizations build and maintain competitive advantage through their people.
Ready to transform how your team learns critical knowledge? Discover how AI-powered active learning could revolutionize your training approach.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Season 2.
Doing Business in Benville withthe Whisker and Warehouse
Warriors, harvey, you got toremember.
Yeah, there we go, the big Wand Harvey.
First question before weintroduce our guest is in all
honesty, do you ever think we'dmake it to a Season 2?
I need you to really reach deepdown and figure that one out.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
For our thousands of fans out there that were filing
their way into my inbox.
Thank you for the love,Absolutely.
We knew there was a season twobaked into season one.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I mean, listen, I was with you at the airport and
somebody came up and goes that'sharvey williams from the
whisker warehouse warriors, canI get an autograph?
And I go, wow, like this, wewere in china.
I mean like the globallandscape.
I mean sasha, I'm making ahundred percent of this up, of
course.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I mean I was honored to get the invite to the whiskey
warriors, uh well, I don't knowwhat was the name.
You guys were doing a w signal.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I didn't know what to do all right, sasha, if it was
the whiskey warriors, we'd beall.
It's the whiskered like.
Notice the beer, the whiskered,the whiskered.
I didn't get the invite forthat.
I shaved yesterday and youdidn't come prepared, you, you,
you were whisker less, but anyuh, any proprietors of whiskey
out there like to sponsor us?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
we'll change the name .
Give us a call.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We'll change the name .
We'll be the whiskey warriors.
I mean I'd happily do that ifsomebody, like if jim beam,
wanted to come in and and be oursponsors.
Harvey, right, I mean we couldretire from plug and play and be
full-time podcasters jim jack.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
If you're listening, uh, and you have supply chain
problems, give us a call I meanif, if, if you gave me the data
I mean I could pass it along toour marketing team Maybe you
could be the Learn to WinWhiskey Warriors.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's a great segue.
It's got a lot of Ws in it.
It's a great segue.
So, sasha, we're excited tohave you kick off Season 2, the
CEO and founder of Learn to Winand I do have to comment, and
you did pay me to comment onthis, but we are finishing the
March Madness season here andyou got your North Carolina
hoodie on, or I can't tell ifthat's a quarter zip, but you
(02:11):
did play basketball for them,right?
I mean, not only do you have agreat brand and a great business
, which we'll cover, but you'rea D1 college basketball athlete,
which is part of the reason whyI like you so much.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, a.
I was a walk-on for thetarheels in 2014 to 2015, which
was a phenomenal life experiencefor me.
I was a long time tarheels fangrowing up.
My dad went to carolina, uh,and so I always grew up watching
the tarheels and it was achildhood dream come true to
make the team um so from abasketball perspective it's
always tricky, uh, becausepeople hear that I played for
(02:44):
north carolina and think thatI'm like michael jordan.
I have to counsel them that I'mlike somewhere between like the
baddest dude at the ymca, like I, I will, I will come in and and
dominate on your rec league,but I'm not like, uh, I'm not an
nj over here.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I pick you up on my team for pickup any day of the
week.
Um, who were the?
Who were the notable uh nbaplayers that were on the team
with you at the time?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, let's see, harrison Barnes was a year ahead
of me at Chapel Hill.
I didn't play with him directly, but he obviously played in the
NBA for quite some time.
Let's see the years that Iplayed.
So in 15 was when I graduated.
The real stars were Marcus Page, bryce Johnson, that crew, the
real stars were Marcus Page,bryce Johnson that crew.
(03:25):
In 16, we lost in the nationalchampionship to Villanova, which
was a heartbreaker for me.
I was in some game.
Yeah, I was in Ireland at thetime.
I was playing here professionalbasketball and then studying on
a Mitchell fellowship and I wasactually traveling to Scotland.
Uh, and I.
The game was on at like three, 4.
(03:45):
Am and I couldn't get the thewifi to work in the hotel that I
was staying at.
So I had to go across thestreet to steal the other hotels
wifi, but I couldn't get in thebuilding.
So I was standing underneaththe awning and, like the pouring
rain, uh, listening to the gameon my headphones and like this
kind of scattered Wi Fi was likethree, 4am and when ultimately,
(04:09):
the Villanova shot happened, itwas yeah, it was.
It was one of the darkestmoments of my life.
It feels like an uncomfortablething to say but it was really
just a sad time, but then at 17,we won it all.
And so you could say eitherfrom a from that perspective,
either the team got much betteras soon as I left, or there was
just phenomenal seniormentorship uh I mean, well,
(04:30):
glass half full.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I mean it had to be because of your mentorship,
right?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I mean, that's the way I'm looking at it yeah, the
guys who played on that teamwould be like joel berry, uh,
justin jackson, theo pinson, uh,isaiah hicks, uh, really,
really talented guys and reallygood people as well, too.
I consider myself veryfortunate to have been a part of
it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Josh, has your doctor cleared you to play basketball
yet after you blew all theligaments in your knee?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, sasha, I'm recovering from a meniscus and
ACL tear and, at my elevated age, you guys are not quite there
yet.
I'm still one more monthremoved from from clearance to
get back on the court.
So, um, I was a scrappy pointguard back in my day, sasha, but
clearly not I can.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I was like we've only met like once or twice and I
could.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I could see the grit, you know yeah, I was a, I was a
take the charge guy, I'm ascreen setter, I'm a, I'm a pick
and roll feed in the post youreally feel the work, kind of
guy I can tell yeah, you give mean open three.
I'll likely not throw up an airball, maybe hit the rim a
couple times, but yeah, thosedays are well well behind me
(05:36):
pickleball and badminton fromhere on out for josh year on out
so, harvard, we created our ownicebreaker.
Today, we talked about uh,sports with with sasha, but
sasha, let's get into it like,learn to win, give us the, give
us the overview of the companyand and I want to start with
like, why you founded this andwhat was the, the impetus for
bringing this to life.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, so maybe start with the overview itself.
We're an AI training platform.
Ultimately, our specialty istaking passive learning
materials that may be inPowerPoint, pdfs, et cetera, or
sitting in the brains of staticmatter experts.
We have an AI tool that canvery quickly convert that into
active learning material, verysimilar to like a Rosetta Stone
or Duolingo type of learning.
(06:18):
That's backed by a lot of thelatest in sort of underlying
data science and learningscience, and then we have an
analytics suite to give you dataand insight into what your
teams are getting right andgetting wrong, so you can very
quickly adjust and change to fitthose changing knowledge of
what your teams know and whatthey don't know.
We have raised a little over 34million dollars.
(06:40):
We're based in uh, california,plug and play.
Where is one of our investorsin our series?
A shout out yep, yep, uh.
We uh, let's see have over 100different organizations that use
our product across the spectrumfrom sort of uh, large fortune
500 organizations, several ofthem like four or five that are
(07:02):
actually plug and play companiesthat plug and play introduced
us to they're resolved one oftheir problems, um, to the
department of defense.
We've got about 35 differentcustomers across the air force,
space force, navy and marinecorps.
We're actually certified to dotraining up to impact level six
so we can do secret leveltraining on our software.
Um, to professional sports teamsuh, we actually signed the
seattle seahawks yesterday,which was fun, wow, yeah, but we
(07:25):
do.
We do everything from nfl teamsto the pg tour does all their
training on our software.
To last year when michiganfootball was, uh was using our,
went on the nationalchampionship.
They were actually using ourtool three or four hours before
game time, uh, which was areally fun national championship
.
They were actually using ourtool three or four hours before
game time, which was a reallyfun thing for me.
They were actually our secondcustomer and to watch them get
to the point where they're usingit right before a national
(07:47):
championship game was really fun.
So that's an overview of thecompany holistically.
I think that's actually apretty good segue into our kind
of origin story as well too.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So real quick.
Are you training the refs aswell?
I think a lot of our listenerswould like to learn how are we
helping the refs?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
uh, it's a great question.
We mostly focus on playertraining, uh, and then for the
pga tour, we actually do alltheir volunteer training, uh.
For, for the nfl, we actuallyhave a initial pilot where we
are starting to train some oftheir junior refs.
So, uh, if, if you have issueswith the referees, that is, uh,
that is not not currentlylearned to win's problem, but
hopefully we will be a part ofthe solution having, I'll say
(08:33):
this, having seen some of theinitial work we've started doing
with the nfl, they have somereally serious training programs
for what they go through and itis not an easy job.
So I know there's lots of folkswho are like this guy should be
better, that guy should bebetter.
But these guys are superserious professionals and I have
, from what I have seen, theytake it really seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, it's part of the sport.
Why make it better when you getall the controversy?
Yeah, my little tin hat on Josh.
There's a conspiracy.
Keep the refs where they aredon't put cameras on the goal
post.
There's a.
Why put a sensor in the ball?
Anyhow, I digress.
Sasha, please continue.
Yes, sasha, please continue.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So I think the the athletics piece is maybe a good
part to start with the originstory.
So, uh, we mentioned at thestart of this podcast that I was
a walk-on for the university ofnorth car.
For me, absolute child'sintrigue come true.
And when I made, the team gothanded this kind of giant
three-ring notebook and calledhey, go memorize this, this is
going to be your playbook.
And I remember taking it backto my dorm room at the time and
(09:33):
my roommate at Chapel Hill wasour student body president and
Andrew's big focus and his bigpush as student body president
was in changing the way thattraditional learning was done at
the university and he actuallygot a $10 million grant funded
to change some of the styles ofhow they were teaching and some
of his work that he worked onwith a professor actually got
featured in the New York Timesfor everything that they were
(09:54):
doing and basically the conceptbehind it is pretty intuitive,
but it's basically this idea ofbringing active learning into
the learning process.
So ultimately, going from Iprofessor, stand up and talk to
you for an hour and a half andthat's ultimately how you learn
to much more of you get a littlebit of information and then you
might get a quiz question totest whether or not you actually
(10:15):
understand that information,and then the instructor or the
professor gets data into here'swhat you're getting right,
here's what you're getting wrongso they can adjust their
teaching methods accordingly.
And you kind of repeat thatprocess as you get a little bit
more information.
Then you work together in agroup, you get a little
information in the quiz questionand the data behind it was
really excellent.
We're talking like 30improvement and how it comes
(10:36):
across the board for all kindsof students.
And so Andrew and I said well,what if we could take some of
those similar sort of ideasaround how you train and how you
learn and apply them to thisworld of highly competitive
athletics where there's a reallystrong incentive to perform
better and to win?
And so that was the earliestsort of thought process for me
(10:58):
and Andrew.
He and I went to graduateschool at Stanford together and
ultimately launched the platform.
While we were there, startedwith athletic programs and
really honed a lot of otheropportunities for how we could
take this type of training andthis type of methodology that we
(11:23):
developed and apply it to theworld of other places.
So that's where we shifted fromthat to the US military, went
from there into Fortune 500companies and really saw the
growth that we've seen today.
And there's a lot longer story.
Oh, it's great Working with theDepartment of Defense and all
of those pieces, but that's thestory in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Josh, I have a clarifying question for you and
the Fortune 500 companies.
Is this platform meant for?
Josh Safran starts a new job atCompany A and this is your
onboarding, or Josh Safran'swith the company three to five
years and I got promoted to anew job, or is it both?
Both?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So where we work with large organizations and large
companies is what we like tocall the last mile of training
and learning.
And so if there's two differenttypes of knowledge that really
drive performance in anorganization, there's what we
might call standard knowledge,and I'll give an example for a
sales team.
If I'm a sales team, I need toknow how to speak confidently,
(12:26):
effectively.
I need to know sales 101.
I need to know maybe theSandler sales method, something
along those lines, and that kindof information is really
important for me to do my jobwell.
But you can buy that off theshelf.
You can get that from Coursera,you can get that from LinkedIn.
Somebody has developed thatsomewhere in a really good
format.
Where we at Learn to Win tend towork is what we call this last
mile of training and learning,and it's the stuff in your
(12:48):
organization that you cannot buyoff the shelf.
Again, let's go back to theexample of a sales team.
You can't buy thedifferentiators between your
product and somebody else'sproduct from a Coursera.
That cannot be purchasedsomewhere else.
You can't buy here's how we useSalesforce in our particular
way or our particular method offthe shelf.
You can't buy here's our uniquevalue proposition or here's how
(13:13):
you understand this particularindustry off the shelf.
It has to be developedinternally and a lot of that
information is sitting inPowerPoints, it's sitting in
PDFs.
It might be sitting in somesort of broader company
corporate learning system thatmight house the information
really well but isn't reallydesigned to actually be an
effective teacher of theinformation.
(13:33):
And what we do a really reallygood job of at Word2win is we
take that information and we canbuild it faster than anybody
else can.
We've got basically our AI toolthat we've honed from years and
years of working with theDepartment of Defense and other
places to take that material,build it in our platform really
quickly.
We also do it in a highlysecure way because we are
accredited to do this up toimpact level six with the
(13:55):
Department of Defense.
We put it in a format thatmakes it really easy for folks
to learn.
It's accessible on their cellphones or tablets, et cetera.
We're working on a projectwhere we're actually going to
make it available indisconnected environments.
So you're in a place wheremaybe there's a low connectivity
Wi-Fi.
We'll be able to do thatIdeally in the next.
I won't give product timelineson a podcast, but like ideally
(14:21):
soon.
And then this is the part thatI think most of our customers
are really excited about wespend a lot of time ultimately
giving you data and insight intowhat actually moves the needle
for your team and what are thethings that they're
understanding and notunderstanding, so you can very
quickly address those gaps intheir knowledge, things that
they might be saying that areincorrect or might be causing
mistakes or making you losesales or, in the case of our
(14:44):
manufacturing partners, might becausing mistakes down the line
because somebody doesn'tunderstand the process correctly
, or might be causing them toleave their job because they're
not performing well, becausethey don't feel confident in
what they're doing.
We give you those data and asanalytics, and we are sort of
working towards a future wherewe can sort of automatically
create content that wouldactually address those gaps very
(15:05):
, very quickly.
Work with company.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
A.
You're taking existing trainingmaterials that's sitting in a
binder or in a PDF or PowerPoint, and then you're utilizing AI
to automate the process.
(15:28):
You're not building new contentfor them, You're not teaching
how to do the training andcreating content.
You're taking existing contentthat may be a little bit more
archaic and modernizing it forthe workforce.
Is that?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
fair.
Yes, that's correct, Thoughthere are some scenarios in
which somebody may say, like weknow we need to create this.
Can your team help?
And we do have a professionalservices team as well as
partners that we work with thatcan help them actually build and
create it.
So we've built full academiesfor folks out of things that
they're like.
This is really important.
This is really critical.
We need somebody to create thistype of academy for us and we
(16:01):
will come in and actually dothat.
But the majority of the timewe're taking pre-existing
material they have that is notparticularly effective and not
getting the job done and is notoutcomes driven and helping them
get that training to the pointwhere it is actually moving
metrics that matter at theirorganization.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So what's the message that's resonating when you're
pitching this to a prospectivecustomer?
Are you saying like we're goingto condense that time to
productivity for a new hirethat's coming onto the sales
team?
We're going to shorten thattime it takes for them to reach
quota, whether it's nine monthsnormally.
Usually our customers see it inthe first three to six months.
Is that the pitch?
Or, like, how are youquantifying the ROI for your
(16:39):
customers?
Is that?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
the pitch or like how are you quantifying the ROI for
your customers?
Yeah, that's a great question,so I'll give.
I'll give an example.
We started working with NolanTransportation Group.
They're one of the largestfreight brokers in the United
States.
They, when they hire sort of anew hire start class it might be
100 200 new sales reps that arecoming into their organization.
Prior to working with Learn2Win, they had I think it was a
(17:01):
five-week, six-week onboardingprocess where they were bringing
new sales reps in and puttingthem through their training how
to be a freight broker, how tosell, what's the unique value
proposition that they need, whatis it is the freight industry,
all those different pieces.
And they were setting them outand their churn rate over the
course of six months for thosereps was something like 47, 48%.
(17:22):
And then it was roughly taking.
They track a metric that theycall time to productivity, which
is how long does it take forthat new hire start class to
become cash ROI passive?
And for them it was about 13months.
We came in, we looked at whatthey were doing with their
existing content.
We took that material, we putit into our platform, basically
(17:44):
creating into the most much moreinteractive sort of better
learning science format.
We started arming them withdata so that they could say,
okay, somebody is notunderstanding this.
We can address that directlybecause we have data on what
they're getting right and whatthey're getting wrong, and not
only, maybe, what they'regetting right and what they're
getting wrong, but here's placeswhere they might be getting
something correct, but they'renot actually confident in what
(18:05):
they're doing, and so they mighthave guessed this multiple
choice correctly, but they'renot actually prepared to be able
to step out and do the job well.
And so we basically transformedthe way they were doing that
onboarding process that allowedthem to say, okay, I think we
can actually shorten this fromsix weeks down to two weeks.
(18:25):
So they got people out in thefield much faster.
The churn rate of folks aftersix months dropped from 47% down
to I know we did was 13% of 47,34% over the six months, and
then they took that sort of 13month timeline and dropped that
down to nine.
Now you can't directlyattribute all of that to learn
to win.
There were some things thatthey were doing as well as a
(18:47):
part of it, but as a part ofthat sort of holistic change in
the holistic process, we wereable to actually move metrics
that mattered for them, which islike time to productivity,
churn rate and, ultimately, likesales numbers on the backend.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Let me ask you a question, sasha.
When we're sitting inBentonville and we're focused on
, obviously, walmart, tyson, jbHunt here, but then every CPG's
got offices here and the peopleare listening to this going,
this is really cool, right?
Because onboarding is alwaysdifficult and training is always
difficult.
Is the right point of contactsomebody in the HR team,
somebody that's leading a salesteam?
(19:24):
I mean, I'm sure the answer isall of the above, but who should
we be pointing them to in theseorganizations when they're
interested in your product?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, almost all of the ones that we work with it's
either a sales team, it's anoperations or a manufacturing
team team.
It's an operations or amanufacturing team, or it's some
sort of customer service orcustomer delivery team.
So usually the folks who wework most directly with have
some sort of angle or lineresponsibility around, like
(19:53):
selling a product, manufacturinga product or making sure that
the customers are happy.
Usually, where they find a lotof value in our tool is our
speed to be able to roll out, aswell as our speed and
flexibility, as well as the datathat it gives them.
Ultimately, we have greatrelationships with learning and
development teams, but usuallythey're the ones who are
overwhelmed with some sort oflike large LMS system or LMS
(20:17):
platform and can't really handleanother thing.
They're also not usually tied tothe outcomes of whether or not
you need to go.
They're not tied to a salesnumber, if that makes sense, so
they're less likely to be theright person, to be the right
point of contact for us.
So usually it's a sales leader,it's an operations leader, it's
a customer success leader, andthose are our primary use cases
(20:39):
of sort of training a sales teamfaster, more effectively,
making sure that your customersuccess team is well trained and
reduces the number of errorsthat they have when they
communicate with their customersabout a particular product.
Making sure that they'retrained well and then basically
manufacturing a particular tooland making sure that the process
for doing that your folks knowall the right procedures they
(21:01):
need to follow to manufacture it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Harvey.
So I've noticed I've asked twoor three questions and I've
never gotten great question fromSasha.
You asked one question andSasha said great question.
So I'm feeling a littlesensitive over here about my
lack of ability to drive a greatquestion.
So there's a lot of pressure onyou for what you're going to
say next.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I want to dive into the manufacturing use case and
however much you can share Offthe top of the brain, we can
create a hypothetical if youwant to.
But we're getting pulled intomore manufacturing use cases as
plug and play.
Our group Supply Chain reallygrew into supply chain and
advanced manufacturing two yearsago, 18 months ago.
Let's say we're getting pulledinto more advanced manufacturing
, like two years ago, 18 monthsago, let's say and so we're
getting pulled into moreadvanced manufacturing
(21:42):
environments in semiconductorand aerospace and defense, and
that's great, but also themanufacturing environments for
CPG, and so there's a wide rangethere.
So what are some examples ofhow learn to win is getting
dropped into a manufacturingenvironment, because all all the
same problems around labor aretrue, irrespective of which
industry you're in.
Great question, harvey.
(22:04):
Thank you, josh.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I thought it was an above average question.
I wasn't going to say greatquestion, but I was only going
to say that, just because Ididn't want to offend Josh.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Regression.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, how about I use anexample?
That was an introduction fromthe Plug and Play team.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Shout out.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, shout out, shout out, plug and Play.
But the Plug and Play teamintroduced us to Ping, the golf
club manufacturers.
Ping has this super intensiveprocess for how they manufacture
each club.
Uh, it is like very intensive,it is very thoughtful, it is
(22:45):
wildly more complex than I everthought for ultimately creating
a golf club and what they wantedus to be able to come in and do
, and there's a limit to howmuch we're actually mid-pilot
with them right now.
So we're like a couple monthsin.
We've seen some really excitingresults.
I don't want to get too far intolike we've solved the problem
for them, but results are verygood and ultimately I don't want
to get too much away aroundsort of what Ping does, but as a
(23:06):
part of training folks on whatthat process is and making sure
that it's both standardized andmaking sure that they both have
that process documented reallywell and making sure that they
can really quickly spot gapswhen somebody doesn't know a
particular part of the process,they basically have rolled us
out of the tool but help withthat initial training as well as
(23:28):
continuous learning when somepart of the process might shift
or change or you think folksjust might need a quick
refresher on.
Here's a particular part of itthat might shift, et cetera.
One of the fun things about theping pilot is that they've
actually got us rolled out, Ithink, in four different
languages right now.
Ultimately, we're going to haveto be rolled out in like eight
(23:49):
or nine because of all thedifferent places that they
manufactured these tools andthey want to make sure that
they've got really standardprocesses across all of the
eight or nine manufacturingspots.
So in process with them rightnow.
We just rolled out that pilot,but I thought I'd bring that one
up because it was anintroduction from the plug and
play team and has been reallyexciting to roll out.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I swear this was not a planted question for all of
our listeners.
You got to trust the firm inthis one.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I didn't know.
I didn't think about language.
I didn't think about workingwith global companies.
I'm sure that the PowerPoint orPDF that's been built is
primarily in one language.
You probably need to, in someof these global companies,
translate these things intomultiple different languages.
I used to work forColgate-Palmolive, a global
company, huge presence in LatinAmerica, Mexico.
(24:38):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
That's probably a big part of what you guys do now.
Yeah, I mean, it's one of theservices that we offer.
I wouldn't say it's our drivingvalue proposition, but
fortunately our AI tool can do alot of that for the ending.
And then we have a team offolks that can actually
translate into five or sixdifferent ones.
Sometimes we'll have to bringin outside partners if it's
something we don't haveexperience in.
We got nobody on our team thatspeaks Swahili, but the major
(25:07):
ones we can mostly cover, giventhat at this point we've got a
pretty strong presence acrossmost of North America.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So you guys are riding that nearshoring,
reshoring wave.
Companies are pluckingfactories out of, let's say,
china or Vietnam and they'removing them to the US or Mexico.
They need to drop a labor forcein right away and they need to
spin up rather quickly.
Makes a ton of sense for whereyou guys slot in there.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
What's it like?
One of the things that we'reseeing as well is somebody will
start using us for their USoperation.
Antigifrate is a great exampleof that.
They'll start some sort ofnearshoring, where they'll take
folks from wherever they werebefore, pop them in South
America or in Mexico somewhere,and then they need to use our
tool to train those folks aswell, to maintain consistency,
and ultimately we just have tochange the language on what
(25:52):
we're delivering.
But then it's a super easyrollout.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's all going a different direction.
What's it been like to be adual use company from the
founder's perspective?
Because it's in the airEverybody's from the investor
side, the founder side, thecommercial side.
Dual use Can't get out of aconversation without talking
about tariffs, AI or dual use,it seems like these days, but
(26:18):
you guys have been trying tobalance both for a while.
What's it been like from just astrategy and keeping your focus
and making sure the resourcesare dedicated towards both
markets?
And how are you juggling?
Yeah, yeah, Great question.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Josh, I was thinking it was a really good question,
but I wasn't going to say it Iwas trying to figure out.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
What do I say to this one that doesn't upset Josh?
Good job, I wasn't going to sayit.
I wasn't going to say it.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
So what's interesting is that we started pursuing the
Department of Defense almostfrom the start.
To give a little bit of thebackground context, I'm actually
a reservist for the Navy.
I got a direct commission sixyears ago to intelligence.
Thank you for your service.
Yeah, for the DoD, and I prettyquickly recognized that there
(27:09):
were lots and lots ofopportunities to take our
pre-existing technology andapply it to the Department of
Defense.
So as early as our first yearas a company, we started
partnering with the DoD and wehave been ultimately dual use
really from the start.
And what's funny is that, likeI don't know, it's five, six
years ago when we first startedworking with the Department of
Defense, that was like not cool.
In the venture world Peoplewere like the DoD is slow, it's
(27:30):
bureaucratic, it'll kill yourcompany.
And we're like, yeah, but wethink that there's a really big
opportunity for us to solve hereand we see the benefits of
being able to build somethingthat is battle tested within the
department of fencesenvironment and then apply that
to the commercial ecosystem.
Again, five years ago thatwasn't cool, and now today
everybody's like dual use.
(27:50):
No way, that's awesome.
It's like the first time we'vebeen in like a hot sector where
people are excited about it,which that's fun.
But to your question frombefore, I think for us it has
been a tremendous benefit, Ithink, because we are able to
really test our platform inreally cool environments within
(28:11):
the department of finance andthen take that same type of
learnings that we get from thatarea and then apply them to
similar, similar situations inthe, the, the commercial
ecosystem.
So, like I'll give an example,one of our uh partners on the
department of defense side is uh, one of the school houses, so
one of the air force weatherschool houses, and they had a
(28:32):
process where they're basicallybringing in 900 folks, they're
putting into this intensiveprocess to train them to become
uh all the things they need toknow about the weather, and then
sending them out to go becomeweathermen.
And they had something like a Idon't remember the exact
percentage of their folks whothey call the washback rate, but
(28:53):
folks who failed or had to gobasically back and retake the
course.
And they could calculate froman overall dollar amount how
much it was costing them to makefolks retake this course in
terms of time, effort, energy,cost per diem, et cetera.
And so we came in.
We basically they had us withfour or 500 sort of PDFs and
(29:16):
PowerPoints, all the things thatthey were using to train their
folks.
Sort of PDFs and PowerPoints,all the things that they were
using to train their folks.
Our AI tool read all of it,built it into our platform in
four to five weeks.
So the AI did the first version.
Then we had a team come in andbasically do the second one.
So originally it's scoped aslike a 12 month product to build
the content.
So we dramatically shorten thetime to actually get it out, end
up delivering it to thestudents.
(29:36):
We then arm the instructorswith all the same data of here's
what you're getting right,here's what they're getting
wrong, here's how you can adjustyour course.
We ultimately take the washbackrate.
We cut it in half In the firstyear that our platform is rolled
out.
That saves them roughly like$2.7 million in terms of reduced
costs from basically buildingand delivering our tool.
(29:59):
And we were able to take thatsuccess and then apply it
directly to sort of any othercommercial onboarding Because we
refined the tool here.
We got a ton of data, what wentright, what went wrong, way to
build it for a secureinfrastructure and then, when we
were coming into sort of theselarge enterprises, we were able
to say, okay, I see you have asimilar problem.
(30:20):
The cool house case study looksexactly the same as the
onboarding case study for newhires.
We already have a lot ofexperience in building this.
We have already a secureplatform and infrastructure.
Let us apply the things wealready know how to do to this
particular instance.
Now there are some things thatcome up that, let's say, are
(30:45):
really valuable for theDepartment of Defense, that
aren't valuable for ourcommercial customers, and you
sometimes have to balance thoseproduct questions of like, well,
are we going to integrate withthis particular software that's
only available in the DID?
Are we going to integrate withthis particular software that's
only available for ourcommercial customers?
But I think holistically it'sbeen a real net positive.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So for the founders that are listening, how do you
allocate engineering resources?
Do you have separate teams, oris your team focused on both but
just it's an 80-20 rule or it'ssplit up a different way?
How are you guys approachingthat from a resourcing
perspective?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
That was just an average question.
That was better than mine, butthat one didn't hit the grade
level.
I've gotten out of the businessof rating Harvey's questions.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
I'm going to leave that to Josh.
I'm just going to assume thatall his questions are great, as
are yours, josh.
They're all excellent and I'mnot going to comment anymore.
Uh, so we, the way that wethink about it, uh, holistically
(31:47):
is is in use cases.
So let's take our likeschoolhouse or our academy use
case and that's for new hireonboarding.
That use case, while slightdifferences, is the same for
schoolhouses.
It's the same for a new personcoming in and learning their
particular rate in thedepartment of fence.
It's the same for a new personcoming in and learning their
particular rate in thedepartment of fence.
It's the same for hiring a newlife sciences or pharmaceutical
sales rep and their at homestudy.
It's the same as NTG Freighthiring their new person who
(32:10):
needs to come and learn thefreight industry.
Like that Academy use case ofonboarding somebody faster, more
effectively, somebody fasterand more effectively.
It's different in terms of thelength of time.
It's different in terms of thematerial you need to know, but
the key core pieces of it, ofhow do you transform the
material really quickly, how doyou get into the brains of
somebody very effectively, howdo you learn the ultimate folks
with knowledge about where arethe gaps in their understanding
(32:32):
and how do you do that asquickly as possible to get them
up to speed as fast as possibleso they can be out and
productive in their job asquickly as they can, is the same
, and so we will pick that aslike a use case and we will have
our teamwork on that, agnosticof whether or not it is a
Department of Defense problemset or whether it is a
commercial one, and we havesimilar types of use cases that
(32:54):
our engineering team work on,whether it's that or whether
it's more of the sort ofcontinuous training and
onboarding or continuoustraining things that we have to
do.
That is much more like a newproduct gets rolled out or
there's a new update to aparticular system.
The Fitzgerald McCain has a new, a new rollout, and you've got
(33:16):
to train a lot of folks reallyquickly on how to use this
particular DoD system.
Like that's the same as a newproduct that gets rolled out.
Uh, for a pharma company you'vegot to retrain everybody on
what that is.
Or like the conventional ledscan't change, you go train.
Like that's a different usecase, but again it aligns very
similarly between the two.
Um, now there's certain thingsthat we have to like carve out
(33:36):
an engineering team on and havethem focus on.
That's really only for the onegroup.
Like being able to deliver upto impact.
Level six is helpful for ourcommercial customers, but they
don't need that level ofsecurity most of the time.
So that's like a DoD specificthing, but mostly we think about
it as use cases.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Sorry, I interrupted.
I apologize, harvey, and it'sgoing to go back to Sasha.
It's interesting for me as Ikind of peel back out a level.
You know my job.
I work with all of ourcorporate partners and one of
the things that we hear on aregular basis is the workforce
has changed so much post-COVID,specifically in the deskless
workforce.
So many folks now are trying toautomate these entry-level jobs
(34:14):
and things of that nature,which means upskilling and
training folks to dohigher-level jobs.
And, boy, like it fitsperfectly with what you are
doing, right?
It all kind of intertwines.
It just makes a lot of sensethat there's a need for this in
pretty much every single companyright now, based on what we
just talked about around theworkforce post-COVID.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, that wasn't a question, but it was still a
great.
It was still a great answer.
You can find it atwwwlearn2wincom.
You can find it atwwwlearn2wincom.
You can email me.
It was an observation.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I thought I'd lay that out there.
It just kind of hit me.
This all puts togetherperfectly with a great
opportunity for you guys.
So not a great question, but agreat observation.
Yeah, great observation.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
We have seen a huge boost.
I mean, there's a couple ofdifferent things that have
really helped us as a business.
I think part of being a founderof a company is to work very
hard, to care a lot about yourteam, to have a great idea, to
be very gritty and resilient.
A lot of those things come intoit.
(35:16):
There's also about being reallylucky and having really great
timing, and I think for us, theCOVID world and shift to a more
deskless workforce and all ofthe changes that came with it
were a great opportunity for usto bring in a tool that could
help people adapt to that very,very quickly.
I think that the rise in AI hasbeen phenomenal for us, mostly
(35:37):
because, again, there's a lot ofthings you need to retrain
folks on very quickly and B theway that AI has transformed our
product in terms of our accuracyand our ability to be able to
take pre-existing content andconvert it into our platform,
how we can arm folks to be ableto build and create their own
content, and it's a lot of thethings that we're doing with
sort of AI and analytics.
(35:57):
A lot of the things that we'redoing with sort of ai and
analytics like we are veryquickly shifting our product to
being almost entirely aioriented in a way that uh was
just sort of not possible for ustwo years ago.
Um, so it feels cool to be uhsort of on this kind of like.
Don't want to be on thefortunate end of a timing
perspective that ultimately,like I wish I was a sage and
(36:17):
could have predicted that thiswould happen, but some ways you
kind of be there to be luckyrather than smart, I also think
from a from a dual useperspective to your point,
harley, I think I think we wehad a lot of conviction early on
that there was an opportunityin the department of fence, both
from my personal experiences,having gone through a lot of the
dodD training cycles as well,as just a view of like this is a
(36:40):
really big opportunity.
They care a lot about outcomes.
We training is incrediblyimportant to the Department of
Defense.
If you're not fighting yourtraining and some of the
underlying thinking that we hadabout great power competition
with Russia and China, like wecould see that all happening and
so we took a bet on it early onwhen folks said this wasn't a
(37:00):
great idea and I think has justput us in a position where being
dual use is now really cool.
There's tons of opportunity inthe space and we've already
spent the time and energy tobuild relationships, have a
platform that can do securelevel training, have all the
contracting vehicles to be ableto work with the department of
defense.
It's just been a really greattime.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
What's been the most recent inflection point for the
business?
Is it the advancement in AItools that we've all seen in the
past 12 months?
Is it the dual use piece?
What's been that moment whereyou guys, the founding team,
looks back and says we hit thislittle mario kart star and we
(37:46):
went?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
that way yeah yeah, um, and I think I really think
the and this wasn't like a onemoment in time, this was sort of
like over the past couple ofyears, but I really do think
(38:07):
that the advances in ai over thecourse of the past couple of
years have made it possible forus to do things in the learning
world and in the training worldthat, prior to a few years ago,
(38:27):
was fantasy world.
Ultimately, we will be in aposition very soon where you
will be able to take ourplatform and say all right, I am
the training leader at Novartis, one of our customers on the
life sciences side, and I needto be able to develop training
(38:51):
for my new sales reps or my newMSLs, and it's on this
particular drug that's gettingrolled out.
I want the Learn to Win tool tobe able to read these documents
pre approved, to be able toactually for our team to go work
off of.
I want them to build anexcellent onboarding.
I want it to make sure that itcovers these five things.
(39:14):
I want to make sure that it hasthese six competency levels
that they are fluent on.
These are really key outcomesfor me and I want to make sure
that it develops a drip processsuch that over the course of the
next year, this informationstays top of mind for them and I
can be confident that, as asales and training leader, that
(39:36):
my team understands these sixthings that they need to
communicate to a physician Goand the tool can actually build
and create that.
Are we there right now, today?
No, but the pieces are in placefor us to be able to do that
and that sort of future world ofboth being able to really
rapidly create this trainingmaterial, be able to deliver it
(39:58):
in a way that is sort ofseamless and effective and to
give you insight on what are themetrics that matter for your
team and be able to change themand adapt them really fast.
Like that's not something thatwould have been possible three
years ago, like if we hadimagined it, but like we
couldn't actually do it and nowwe're in a world where we can
actually work towards that andit's very possible.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
That's going to make sense.
We're coming up on timeAnything else that you want to
cover that we didn't cover, andmake sure you close with us with
how to reach you, email address, website and other things so it
was basically like anythingelse I want to cover yeah,
anything else that we didn't hiton, anything else that you want
(40:40):
to leave the audience with, andthen let us know how to get in
touch with you.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Basically, the shameless plugs portion.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah well, I'll say a couple different things yeah,
first, just uh always, alwaysappreciative of the tremendous
honor to be on the WhiskeredWarriors podcast, despite the
fact that I have no whiskers.
I'll say thanks again to thePlug and Play team.
You have been phenomenalinvestors in our company.
(41:07):
We have, I think, at this point, five different relationships
where you're either in a pilotor fully rolled out across an
organization.
That all started from folks whogot introduced to us from the
plug and play side.
You saw a problem.
You thought Learn to Win couldsolve it.
You've made the connection andwe are now actively rolled out
across those organizations and Ican go through them if it's
(41:28):
helpful.
But just really appreciate youguys.
And I guess the last piece isthat if you're listening to this
and any of this sounded like athing that we could help with
whether it's some last milelearning or training problem
would love to connect.
And even if it's somethingwhere you're like, hey, this
sounded really interesting andI'd love to work with you guys
on how to come up with asolution.
(41:49):
We love to co-develop thingswith our partners and our
customers.
Ultimately, what we need onyour side is a commitment to
really wanting to improve howyou guys are doing training,
teaching, learning, and we cansort of come up together with
some really creative ideas,which we've done with customers
in the past.
So the way to reach mewwwlearntowincom.
(42:10):
You can find me on LinkedIn,sasha Seymour.
Email is just sasha atlearntowincom.
Anything else that'd be helpful?
I can send you my Instagram orsomething To be clear.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
If somebody wanted to reach out to you for an
introduction of Carter, kennySmith, michael Jordan, antoine
Jameson, like those, that's notwhat we're doing, right?
We?
We, we're not going toreconnect with some of the, the
OGs and the legend.
This is specifically forbusiness, correct?
Yeah, correct, correct, allright, just making sure, because
I'd love to meet those people,but I also would rather spend
time with you.
I would too.
They probably wouldn'trecognize me, but I'd rather
(42:44):
talk to you because the stuffthat you're doing is
revolutionary and it's.
I don't want to speak forHarvey, but I know he wouldn't
want to say how amazing thepartnership has been with you
guys and we're just hitting theground with you.
Harvey, anything you want toadd there?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
for all those people that uh, recently tossed,
shattered, wrapped around a stopsign pole, um, with your ping
clubs, please remember a lot ofcare goes into manufacturing
those clubs.
So, josh, next time you get alittle angry on the links,
remember this conversation.
I will.
I will, but the more, the moreyou break your clubs, the more
(43:20):
ping needs to manufacture moreclubs, which is more times they
need to rely on sasha fortraining their people how to
make them.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
So actually I reverse my take, please smash I'm
agnostic to club smashing here,the similar way that I'm
agnostic to to smashing here.
It's a different way that I'magnostic to Harvey's level of
quality of question.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
There, it's a Friday.
Look it's.
Ups and downs, highs and lows.
Sasha, this has been awesomeman, thank you.
Thank you, sasha.
Founders, please, if you wantto get in touch with Sasha, if
you want to talk about stuff wedidn't get a chance to cover,
like fundraising how how do youhire the right team to sell into
the government versuscommercial, because that's
another podcast in and of itself.
It can get nasty there.
Let me know and then we can tryto set up an opportunity for
(44:04):
you to meet with Sasha, and thatwould be a good follow-up.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Harvey at PNPTCcom.
That's a shameless plug for you.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
That is a shame.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I know how much you love emails flooding your inbox,
I figured I'd throw that outthere.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, I much you love emails flooding your inbox, I
figure you throw that out there.
Yeah, I prefer uh cash appvenmo.
There's a lot of other ways youcan reach me on goodreads if
you want to find me on goodreads.
Sasha, what are you readingright now?
Hold on, before we leave.
Before we leave, sasha has aspecial place in my heart
because he introduced me to thename of the wind, uh, and then
subsequently wise man's fear,which is, hands down, probably
the best fantasy in like adecade.
Sadly, it's been a decade sincehe released the first book.
(44:41):
We still don't have the thirdbook yet.
But what are you reading atthis moment?
Speaker 3 (44:45):
so I read.
I share a love for uh, forfiction novels, specifically
fantasy fiction, king killerchronicles favorite ones in the
world.
If you haven't read them,absolutely wonderful.
Um, I'll give two answers tothat question.
The first one probably threemonths ago, I finished reading
the Sword of Kaijin by ML Wang.
It's kind of like this Avatar,last Airbender world, but it was
(45:08):
phenomenal.
So that's my first one.
The one that I'm actuallyreading today, if you want an
honest answer, is the Mistbornseries.
I'm about halfway through thethird one.
Very excellent, not like Swordof Kaijin or Kingkiller
Chronicles level excellent, butstill very good.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
So that is on my nightstand at the moment the
first Mistborn.
Really they're good and theLies of Locke Lamora, but I have
not heard of the Sword ofKaijin.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Dude, you've got to read Sword of Kaijin.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
It's so good, done easy.
I'm gonna just like put thoseother two on the side.
Josh, what are you reading?
Uh, my, my, my educationallevel.
I'm reading like peoplemagazine, a little tmz, maybe
you know.
That's kind of focused for me.
I got six kids at home.
I don't have time to barely getsix kids.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
You're in the bird scene bears, correct, yeah,
correct, correct, correct.
Yeah, my nephew's just got intocaptain underpants.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
So you got six kids.
You read the Birdseed Bears,correct, yeah, correct, correct,
correct.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
My nephew's just got into Captain Underpants, so
that's what.
I'm a big reader of that whenI'm back in Greenville, North
Carolina.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
I didn't think we'd get into Captain Underpants, Dan
Apoc.
This is why you never knowwhere this is going to go.
You never know where it's goingto go.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
You shouldn't have brought me on if the captain
underpants is going to come up.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Thank you, sasha.
A pleasure, continued success.
We appreciate the relationshipwith you and thanks for making
the time for us today.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, appreciate it, harvey, and.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Josh, bye, guys, bye.
Welcome to Season 2.
Doing Business in Benville withthe Whisker and Warehouse
Warriors, harvey, you got toremember.
Yeah, there we go, the big Wand Harvey.
First question before weintroduce our guest is in all
honesty, do you ever think we'dmake it to a Season 2?
I need you to really reach deepdown and figure that one out.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
For our thousands of fans out there that were filing
their way into my inbox.
Thank you for the love,Absolutely.
We knew there was a season twobaked into season one.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I mean, listen, I was with you at the airport and
somebody came up and goes that'sharvey williams from the
whisker warehouse warriors, canI get an autograph?
And I go, wow, like this, wewere in china.
I mean like the globallandscape.
I mean sasha, I'm making ahundred percent of this up, of
course.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I mean I was honored to get the invite to the whiskey
warriors, uh well, I don't knowwhat was the name.
You guys were doing a w signal.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I didn't know what to do all right, sasha, if it was
the whiskey warriors, we'd beall.
It's the whiskered like.
Notice the beer, the whiskered,the whiskered.
I didn't get the invite forthat.
I shaved yesterday and youdidn't come prepared, you, you,
you were whisker less, but anyuh, any proprietors of whiskey
out there like to sponsor us?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
we'll change the name .
Give us a call.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We'll change the name .
We'll be the whiskey warriors.
I mean I'd happily do that ifsomebody, like if jim beam,
wanted to come in and and be oursponsors.
Harvey, right, I mean we couldretire from plug and play and be
full-time podcasters jim jack.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
If you're listening, uh, and you have supply chain
problems, give us a call I meanif, if, if you gave me the data
I mean I could pass it along toour marketing team Maybe you
could be the Learn to WinWhiskey Warriors.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's a great segue.
It's got a lot of Ws in it.
It's a great segue.
So, sasha, we're excited tohave you kick off Season 2, the
CEO and founder of Learn to Winand I do have to comment, and
you did pay me to comment onthis, but we are finishing the
March Madness season here andyou got your North Carolina
hoodie on, or I can't tell ifthat's a quarter zip, but you
(02:11):
did play basketball for them,right?
I mean, not only do you have agreat brand and a great business
, which we'll cover, but you'rea D1 college basketball athlete,
which is part of the reason whyI like you so much.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, a.
I was a walk-on for thetarheels in 2014 to 2015, which
was a phenomenal life experiencefor me.
I was a long time tarheels fangrowing up.
My dad went to carolina, uh,and so I always grew up watching
the tarheels and it was achildhood dream come true to
make the team um so from abasketball perspective it's
always tricky, uh, becausepeople hear that I played for
(02:44):
north carolina and think thatI'm like michael jordan.
I have to counsel them that I'mlike somewhere between like the
baddest dude at the ymca, like I, I will, I will come in and and
dominate on your rec league,but I'm not like, uh, I'm not an
nj over here.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I pick you up on my team for pickup any day of the
week.
Um, who were the?
Who were the notable uh nbaplayers that were on the team
with you at the time?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, let's see, harrison Barnes was a year ahead
of me at Chapel Hill.
I didn't play with him directly, but he obviously played in the
NBA for quite some time.
Let's see the years that Iplayed.
So in 15 was when I graduated.
The real stars were Marcus Page, bryce Johnson, that crew, the
real stars were Marcus Page,bryce Johnson that crew.
(03:25):
In 16, we lost in the nationalchampionship to Villanova, which
was a heartbreaker for me.
I was in some game.
Yeah, I was in Ireland at thetime.
I was playing here professionalbasketball and then studying on
a Mitchell fellowship and I wasactually traveling to Scotland.
Uh, and I.
The game was on at like three, 4.
(03:45):
Am and I couldn't get the thewifi to work in the hotel that I
was staying at.
So I had to go across thestreet to steal the other hotels
wifi, but I couldn't get in thebuilding.
So I was standing underneaththe awning and, like the pouring
rain, uh, listening to the gameon my headphones and like this
kind of scattered Wi Fi was likethree, 4am and when ultimately,
(04:09):
the Villanova shot happened, itwas yeah, it was.
It was one of the darkestmoments of my life.
It feels like an uncomfortablething to say but it was really
just a sad time, but then at 17,we won it all.
And so you could say eitherfrom a from that perspective,
either the team got much betteras soon as I left, or there was
just phenomenal seniormentorship uh I mean, well,
(04:30):
glass half full.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I mean it had to be because of your mentorship,
right?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I mean, that's the way I'm looking at it yeah, the
guys who played on that teamwould be like joel berry, uh,
justin jackson, theo pinson, uh,isaiah hicks, uh, really,
really talented guys and reallygood people as well, too.
I consider myself veryfortunate to have been a part of
it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Josh, has your doctor cleared you to play basketball
yet after you blew all theligaments in your knee?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, sasha, I'm recovering from a meniscus and
ACL tear and, at my elevated age, you guys are not quite there
yet.
I'm still one more monthremoved from from clearance to
get back on the court.
So, um, I was a scrappy pointguard back in my day, sasha, but
clearly not I can.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I was like we've only met like once or twice and I
could.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I could see the grit, you know yeah, I was a, I was a
take the charge guy, I'm ascreen setter, I'm a, I'm a pick
and roll feed in the post youreally feel the work, kind of
guy I can tell yeah, you give mean open three.
I'll likely not throw up an airball, maybe hit the rim a
couple times, but yeah, thosedays are well well behind me
(05:36):
pickleball and badminton fromhere on out for josh year on out
so, harvard, we created our ownicebreaker.
Today, we talked about uh,sports with with sasha, but
sasha, let's get into it like,learn to win, give us the, give
us the overview of the companyand and I want to start with
like, why you founded this andwhat was the, the impetus for
bringing this to life.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, so maybe start with the overview itself.
We're an AI training platform.
Ultimately, our specialty istaking passive learning
materials that may be inPowerPoint, pdfs, et cetera, or
sitting in the brains of staticmatter experts.
We have an AI tool that canvery quickly convert that into
active learning material, verysimilar to like a Rosetta Stone
or Duolingo type of learning.
(06:18):
That's backed by a lot of thelatest in sort of underlying
data science and learningscience, and then we have an
analytics suite to give you dataand insight into what your
teams are getting right andgetting wrong, so you can very
quickly adjust and change to fitthose changing knowledge of
what your teams know and whatthey don't know.
We have raised a little over 34million dollars.
(06:40):
We're based in uh, california,plug and play.
Where is one of our investorsin our series?
A shout out yep, yep, uh.
We uh, let's see have over 100different organizations that use
our product across the spectrumfrom sort of uh, large fortune
500 organizations, several ofthem like four or five that are
(07:02):
actually plug and play companiesthat plug and play introduced
us to they're resolved one oftheir problems, um, to the
department of defense.
We've got about 35 differentcustomers across the air force,
space force, navy and marinecorps.
We're actually certified to dotraining up to impact level six
so we can do secret leveltraining on our software.
Um, to professional sports teamsuh, we actually signed the
seattle seahawks yesterday,which was fun, wow, yeah, but we
(07:25):
do.
We do everything from nfl teamsto the pg tour does all their
training on our software.
To last year when michiganfootball was, uh was using our,
went on the nationalchampionship.
They were actually using ourtool three or four hours before
game time, uh, which was areally fun national championship
.
They were actually using ourtool three or four hours before
game time, which was a reallyfun thing for me.
They were actually our secondcustomer and to watch them get
to the point where they're usingit right before a national
(07:47):
championship game was really fun.
So that's an overview of thecompany holistically.
I think that's actually apretty good segue into our kind
of origin story as well too.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So real quick.
Are you training the refs aswell?
I think a lot of our listenerswould like to learn how are we
helping the refs?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
uh, it's a great question.
We mostly focus on playertraining, uh, and then for the
pga tour, we actually do alltheir volunteer training, uh.
For, for the nfl, we actuallyhave a initial pilot where we
are starting to train some oftheir junior refs.
So, uh, if, if you have issueswith the referees, that is, uh,
that is not not currentlylearned to win's problem, but
hopefully we will be a part ofthe solution having, I'll say
(08:33):
this, having seen some of theinitial work we've started doing
with the nfl, they have somereally serious training programs
for what they go through and itis not an easy job.
So I know there's lots of folkswho are like this guy should be
better, that guy should bebetter.
But these guys are superserious professionals and I have
, from what I have seen, theytake it really seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, it's part of the sport.
Why make it better when you getall the controversy?
Yeah, my little tin hat on Josh.
There's a conspiracy.
Keep the refs where they aredon't put cameras on the goal
post.
There's a.
Why put a sensor in the ball?
Anyhow, I digress.
Sasha, please continue.
Yes, sasha, please continue.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So I think the the athletics piece is maybe a good
part to start with the originstory.
So, uh, we mentioned at thestart of this podcast that I was
a walk-on for the university ofnorth car.
For me, absolute child'sintrigue come true.
And when I made, the team gothanded this kind of giant
three-ring notebook and calledhey, go memorize this, this is
going to be your playbook.
And I remember taking it backto my dorm room at the time and
(09:33):
my roommate at Chapel Hill wasour student body president and
Andrew's big focus and his bigpush as student body president
was in changing the way thattraditional learning was done at
the university and he actuallygot a $10 million grant funded
to change some of the styles ofhow they were teaching and some
of his work that he worked onwith a professor actually got
featured in the New York Timesfor everything that they were
(09:54):
doing and basically the conceptbehind it is pretty intuitive,
but it's basically this idea ofbringing active learning into
the learning process.
So ultimately, going from Iprofessor, stand up and talk to
you for an hour and a half andthat's ultimately how you learn
to much more of you get a littlebit of information and then you
might get a quiz question totest whether or not you actually
(10:15):
understand that information,and then the instructor or the
professor gets data into here'swhat you're getting right,
here's what you're getting wrongso they can adjust their
teaching methods accordingly.
And you kind of repeat thatprocess as you get a little bit
more information.
Then you work together in agroup, you get a little
information in the quiz questionand the data behind it was
really excellent.
We're talking like 30improvement and how it comes
(10:36):
across the board for all kindsof students.
And so Andrew and I said well,what if we could take some of
those similar sort of ideasaround how you train and how you
learn and apply them to thisworld of highly competitive
athletics where there's a reallystrong incentive to perform
better and to win?
And so that was the earliestsort of thought process for me
(10:58):
and Andrew.
He and I went to graduateschool at Stanford together and
ultimately launched the platform.
While we were there, startedwith athletic programs and
really honed a lot of otheropportunities for how we could
take this type of training andthis type of methodology that we
(11:23):
developed and apply it to theworld of other places.
So that's where we shifted fromthat to the US military, went
from there into Fortune 500companies and really saw the
growth that we've seen today.
And there's a lot longer story.
Oh, it's great Working with theDepartment of Defense and all
of those pieces, but that's thestory in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Josh, I have a clarifying question for you and
the Fortune 500 companies.
Is this platform meant for?
Josh Safran starts a new job atCompany A and this is your
onboarding, or Josh Safran'swith the company three to five
years and I got promoted to anew job, or is it both?
Both?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So where we work with large organizations and large
companies is what we like tocall the last mile of training
and learning.
And so if there's two differenttypes of knowledge that really
drive performance in anorganization, there's what we
might call standard knowledge,and I'll give an example for a
sales team.
If I'm a sales team, I need toknow how to speak confidently,
(12:26):
effectively.
I need to know sales 101.
I need to know maybe theSandler sales method, something
along those lines, and that kindof information is really
important for me to do my jobwell.
But you can buy that off theshelf.
You can get that from Coursera,you can get that from LinkedIn.
Somebody has developed thatsomewhere in a really good
format.
Where we at Learn to Win tend towork is what we call this last
mile of training and learning,and it's the stuff in your
(12:48):
organization that you cannot buyoff the shelf.
Again, let's go back to theexample of a sales team.
You can't buy thedifferentiators between your
product and somebody else'sproduct from a Coursera.
That cannot be purchasedsomewhere else.
You can't buy here's how we useSalesforce in our particular
way or our particular method offthe shelf.
You can't buy here's our uniquevalue proposition or here's how
(13:13):
you understand this particularindustry off the shelf.
It has to be developedinternally and a lot of that
information is sitting inPowerPoints, it's sitting in
PDFs.
It might be sitting in somesort of broader company
corporate learning system thatmight house the information
really well but isn't reallydesigned to actually be an
effective teacher of theinformation.
(13:33):
And what we do a really reallygood job of at Word2win is we
take that information and we canbuild it faster than anybody
else can.
We've got basically our AI toolthat we've honed from years and
years of working with theDepartment of Defense and other
places to take that material,build it in our platform really
quickly.
We also do it in a highlysecure way because we are
accredited to do this up toimpact level six with the
(13:55):
Department of Defense.
We put it in a format thatmakes it really easy for folks
to learn.
It's accessible on their cellphones or tablets, et cetera.
We're working on a projectwhere we're actually going to
make it available indisconnected environments.
So you're in a place wheremaybe there's a low connectivity
Wi-Fi.
We'll be able to do thatIdeally in the next.
I won't give product timelineson a podcast, but like ideally
(14:21):
soon.
And then this is the part thatI think most of our customers
are really excited about wespend a lot of time ultimately
giving you data and insight intowhat actually moves the needle
for your team and what are thethings that they're
understanding and notunderstanding, so you can very
quickly address those gaps intheir knowledge, things that
they might be saying that areincorrect or might be causing
mistakes or making you losesales or, in the case of our
(14:44):
manufacturing partners, might becausing mistakes down the line
because somebody doesn'tunderstand the process correctly
, or might be causing them toleave their job because they're
not performing well, becausethey don't feel confident in
what they're doing.
We give you those data and asanalytics, and we are sort of
working towards a future wherewe can sort of automatically
create content that wouldactually address those gaps very
(15:05):
, very quickly.
Work with company.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
A.
You're taking existing trainingmaterials that's sitting in a
binder or in a PDF or PowerPoint, and then you're utilizing AI
to automate the process.
(15:28):
You're not building new contentfor them, You're not teaching
how to do the training andcreating content.
You're taking existing contentthat may be a little bit more
archaic and modernizing it forthe workforce.
Is that?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
fair.
Yes, that's correct, Thoughthere are some scenarios in
which somebody may say, like weknow we need to create this.
Can your team help?
And we do have a professionalservices team as well as
partners that we work with thatcan help them actually build and
create it.
So we've built full academiesfor folks out of things that
they're like.
This is really important.
This is really critical.
We need somebody to create thistype of academy for us and we
(16:01):
will come in and actually dothat.
But the majority of the timewe're taking pre-existing
material they have that is notparticularly effective and not
getting the job done and is notoutcomes driven and helping them
get that training to the pointwhere it is actually moving
metrics that matter at theirorganization.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So what's the message that's resonating when you're
pitching this to a prospectivecustomer?
Are you saying like we're goingto condense that time to
productivity for a new hirethat's coming onto the sales
team?
We're going to shorten thattime it takes for them to reach
quota, whether it's nine monthsnormally.
Usually our customers see it inthe first three to six months.
Is that the pitch?
Or, like, how are youquantifying the ROI for your
(16:39):
customers?
Is that?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
the pitch or like how are you quantifying the ROI for
your customers?
Yeah, that's a great question,so I'll give.
I'll give an example.
We started working with NolanTransportation Group.
They're one of the largestfreight brokers in the United
States.
They, when they hire sort of anew hire start class it might be
100 200 new sales reps that arecoming into their organization.
Prior to working with Learn2Win, they had I think it was a
(17:01):
five-week, six-week onboardingprocess where they were bringing
new sales reps in and puttingthem through their training how
to be a freight broker, how tosell, what's the unique value
proposition that they need, whatis it is the freight industry,
all those different pieces.
And they were setting them outand their churn rate over the
course of six months for thosereps was something like 47, 48%.
(17:22):
And then it was roughly taking.
They track a metric that theycall time to productivity, which
is how long does it take forthat new hire start class to
become cash ROI passive?
And for them it was about 13months.
We came in, we looked at whatthey were doing with their
existing content.
We took that material, we putit into our platform, basically
(17:44):
creating into the most much moreinteractive sort of better
learning science format.
We started arming them withdata so that they could say,
okay, somebody is notunderstanding this.
We can address that directlybecause we have data on what
they're getting right and whatthey're getting wrong, and not
only, maybe, what they'regetting right and what they're
getting wrong, but here's placeswhere they might be getting
something correct, but they'renot actually confident in what
(18:05):
they're doing, and so they mighthave guessed this multiple
choice correctly, but they'renot actually prepared to be able
to step out and do the job well.
And so we basically transformedthe way they were doing that
onboarding process that allowedthem to say, okay, I think we
can actually shorten this fromsix weeks down to two weeks.
(18:25):
So they got people out in thefield much faster.
The churn rate of folks aftersix months dropped from 47% down
to I know we did was 13% of 47,34% over the six months, and
then they took that sort of 13month timeline and dropped that
down to nine.
Now you can't directlyattribute all of that to learn
to win.
There were some things thatthey were doing as well as a
(18:47):
part of it, but as a part ofthat sort of holistic change in
the holistic process, we wereable to actually move metrics
that mattered for them, which islike time to productivity,
churn rate and, ultimately, likesales numbers on the backend.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Let me ask you a question, sasha.
When we're sitting inBentonville and we're focused on
, obviously, walmart, tyson, jbHunt here, but then every CPG's
got offices here and the peopleare listening to this going,
this is really cool, right?
Because onboarding is alwaysdifficult and training is always
difficult.
Is the right point of contactsomebody in the HR team,
somebody that's leading a salesteam?
(19:24):
I mean, I'm sure the answer isall of the above, but who should
we be pointing them to in theseorganizations when they're
interested in your product?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, almost all of the ones that we work with it's
either a sales team, it's anoperations or a manufacturing
team team.
It's an operations or amanufacturing team, or it's some
sort of customer service orcustomer delivery team.
So usually the folks who wework most directly with have
some sort of angle or lineresponsibility around, like
(19:53):
selling a product, manufacturinga product or making sure that
the customers are happy.
Usually, where they find a lotof value in our tool is our
speed to be able to roll out, aswell as our speed and
flexibility, as well as the datathat it gives them.
Ultimately, we have greatrelationships with learning and
development teams, but usuallythey're the ones who are
overwhelmed with some sort oflike large LMS system or LMS
(20:17):
platform and can't really handleanother thing.
They're also not usually tied tothe outcomes of whether or not
you need to go.
They're not tied to a salesnumber, if that makes sense, so
they're less likely to be theright person, to be the right
point of contact for us.
So usually it's a sales leader,it's an operations leader, it's
a customer success leader, andthose are our primary use cases
(20:39):
of sort of training a sales teamfaster, more effectively,
making sure that your customersuccess team is well trained and
reduces the number of errorsthat they have when they
communicate with their customersabout a particular product.
Making sure that they'retrained well and then basically
manufacturing a particular tooland making sure that the process
for doing that your folks knowall the right procedures they
(21:01):
need to follow to manufacture it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Harvey.
So I've noticed I've asked twoor three questions and I've
never gotten great question fromSasha.
You asked one question andSasha said great question.
So I'm feeling a littlesensitive over here about my
lack of ability to drive a greatquestion.
So there's a lot of pressure onyou for what you're going to
say next.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I want to dive into the manufacturing use case and
however much you can share Offthe top of the brain, we can
create a hypothetical if youwant to.
But we're getting pulled intomore manufacturing use cases as
plug and play.
Our group Supply Chain reallygrew into supply chain and
advanced manufacturing two yearsago, 18 months ago.
Let's say we're getting pulledinto more advanced manufacturing
, like two years ago, 18 monthsago, let's say and so we're
getting pulled into moreadvanced manufacturing
(21:42):
environments in semiconductorand aerospace and defense, and
that's great, but also themanufacturing environments for
CPG, and so there's a wide rangethere.
So what are some examples ofhow learn to win is getting
dropped into a manufacturingenvironment, because all all the
same problems around labor aretrue, irrespective of which
industry you're in.
Great question, harvey.
(22:04):
Thank you, josh.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I thought it was an above average question.
I wasn't going to say greatquestion, but I was only going
to say that, just because Ididn't want to offend Josh.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Regression.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, how about I use anexample?
That was an introduction fromthe Plug and Play team.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Shout out.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, shout out, shout out, plug and Play.
But the Plug and Play teamintroduced us to Ping, the golf
club manufacturers.
Ping has this super intensiveprocess for how they manufacture
each club.
Uh, it is like very intensive,it is very thoughtful, it is
(22:45):
wildly more complex than I everthought for ultimately creating
a golf club and what they wantedus to be able to come in and do
, and there's a limit to howmuch we're actually mid-pilot
with them right now.
So we're like a couple monthsin.
We've seen some really excitingresults.
I don't want to get too far intolike we've solved the problem
for them, but results are verygood and ultimately I don't want
to get too much away aroundsort of what Ping does, but as a
(23:06):
part of training folks on whatthat process is and making sure
that it's both standardized andmaking sure that they both have
that process documented reallywell and making sure that they
can really quickly spot gapswhen somebody doesn't know a
particular part of the process,they basically have rolled us
out of the tool but help withthat initial training as well as
(23:28):
continuous learning when somepart of the process might shift
or change or you think folksjust might need a quick
refresher on.
Here's a particular part of itthat might shift, et cetera.
One of the fun things about theping pilot is that they've
actually got us rolled out, Ithink, in four different
languages right now.
Ultimately, we're going to haveto be rolled out in like eight
(23:49):
or nine because of all thedifferent places that they
manufactured these tools andthey want to make sure that
they've got really standardprocesses across all of the
eight or nine manufacturingspots.
So in process with them rightnow.
We just rolled out that pilot,but I thought I'd bring that one
up because it was anintroduction from the plug and
play team and has been reallyexciting to roll out.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I swear this was not a planted question for all of
our listeners.
You got to trust the firm inthis one.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I didn't know.
I didn't think about language.
I didn't think about workingwith global companies.
I'm sure that the PowerPoint orPDF that's been built is
primarily in one language.
You probably need to, in someof these global companies,
translate these things intomultiple different languages.
I used to work forColgate-Palmolive, a global
company, huge presence in LatinAmerica, Mexico.
(24:38):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
That's probably a big part of what you guys do now.
Yeah, I mean, it's one of theservices that we offer.
I wouldn't say it's our drivingvalue proposition, but
fortunately our AI tool can do alot of that for the ending.
And then we have a team offolks that can actually
translate into five or sixdifferent ones.
Sometimes we'll have to bringin outside partners if it's
something we don't haveexperience in.
We got nobody on our team thatspeaks Swahili, but the major
(25:07):
ones we can mostly cover, giventhat at this point we've got a
pretty strong presence acrossmost of North America.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So you guys are riding that nearshoring,
reshoring wave.
Companies are pluckingfactories out of, let's say,
china or Vietnam and they'removing them to the US or Mexico.
They need to drop a labor forcein right away and they need to
spin up rather quickly.
Makes a ton of sense for whereyou guys slot in there.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
What's it like?
One of the things that we'reseeing as well is somebody will
start using us for their USoperation.
Antigifrate is a great exampleof that.
They'll start some sort ofnearshoring, where they'll take
folks from wherever they werebefore, pop them in South
America or in Mexico somewhere,and then they need to use our
tool to train those folks aswell, to maintain consistency,
and ultimately we just have tochange the language on what
(25:52):
we're delivering.
But then it's a super easyrollout.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's all going a different direction.
What's it been like to be adual use company from the
founder's perspective?
Because it's in the airEverybody's from the investor
side, the founder side, thecommercial side.
Dual use Can't get out of aconversation without talking
about tariffs, AI or dual use,it seems like these days, but
(26:18):
you guys have been trying tobalance both for a while.
What's it been like from just astrategy and keeping your focus
and making sure the resourcesare dedicated towards both
markets?
And how are you juggling?
Yeah, yeah, Great question.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Josh, I was thinking it was a really good question,
but I wasn't going to say it Iwas trying to figure out.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
What do I say to this one that doesn't upset Josh?
Good job, I wasn't going to sayit.
I wasn't going to say it.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
So what's interesting is that we started pursuing the
Department of Defense almostfrom the start.
To give a little bit of thebackground context, I'm actually
a reservist for the Navy.
I got a direct commission sixyears ago to intelligence.
Thank you for your service.
Yeah, for the DoD, and I prettyquickly recognized that there
(27:09):
were lots and lots ofopportunities to take our
pre-existing technology andapply it to the Department of
Defense.
So as early as our first yearas a company, we started
partnering with the DoD and wehave been ultimately dual use
really from the start.
And what's funny is that, likeI don't know, it's five, six
years ago when we first startedworking with the Department of
Defense, that was like not cool.
In the venture world Peoplewere like the DoD is slow, it's
(27:30):
bureaucratic, it'll kill yourcompany.
And we're like, yeah, but wethink that there's a really big
opportunity for us to solve hereand we see the benefits of
being able to build somethingthat is battle tested within the
department of fencesenvironment and then apply that
to the commercial ecosystem.
Again, five years ago thatwasn't cool, and now today
everybody's like dual use.
(27:50):
No way, that's awesome.
It's like the first time we'vebeen in like a hot sector where
people are excited about it,which that's fun.
But to your question frombefore, I think for us it has
been a tremendous benefit, Ithink, because we are able to
really test our platform inreally cool environments within
(28:11):
the department of finance andthen take that same type of
learnings that we get from thatarea and then apply them to
similar, similar situations inthe, the, the commercial
ecosystem.
So, like I'll give an example,one of our uh partners on the
department of defense side is uh, one of the school houses, so
one of the air force weatherschool houses, and they had a
(28:32):
process where they're basicallybringing in 900 folks, they're
putting into this intensiveprocess to train them to become
uh all the things they need toknow about the weather, and then
sending them out to go becomeweathermen.
And they had something like a Idon't remember the exact
percentage of their folks whothey call the washback rate, but
(28:53):
folks who failed or had to gobasically back and retake the
course.
And they could calculate froman overall dollar amount how
much it was costing them to makefolks retake this course in
terms of time, effort, energy,cost per diem, et cetera.
And so we came in.
We basically they had us withfour or 500 sort of PDFs and
(29:16):
PowerPoints, all the things thatthey were using to train their
folks.
Sort of PDFs and PowerPoints,all the things that they were
using to train their folks.
Our AI tool read all of it,built it into our platform in
four to five weeks.
So the AI did the first version.
Then we had a team come in andbasically do the second one.
So originally it's scoped aslike a 12 month product to build
the content.
So we dramatically shorten thetime to actually get it out, end
up delivering it to thestudents.
(29:36):
We then arm the instructorswith all the same data of here's
what you're getting right,here's what they're getting
wrong, here's how you can adjustyour course.
We ultimately take the washbackrate.
We cut it in half In the firstyear that our platform is rolled
out.
That saves them roughly like$2.7 million in terms of reduced
costs from basically buildingand delivering our tool.
(29:59):
And we were able to take thatsuccess and then apply it
directly to sort of any othercommercial onboarding Because we
refined the tool here.
We got a ton of data, what wentright, what went wrong, way to
build it for a secureinfrastructure and then, when we
were coming into sort of theselarge enterprises, we were able
to say, okay, I see you have asimilar problem.
(30:20):
The cool house case study looksexactly the same as the
onboarding case study for newhires.
We already have a lot ofexperience in building this.
We have already a secureplatform and infrastructure.
Let us apply the things wealready know how to do to this
particular instance.
Now there are some things thatcome up that, let's say, are
(30:45):
really valuable for theDepartment of Defense, that
aren't valuable for ourcommercial customers, and you
sometimes have to balance thoseproduct questions of like, well,
are we going to integrate withthis particular software that's
only available in the DID?
Are we going to integrate withthis particular software that's
only available for ourcommercial customers?
But I think holistically it'sbeen a real net positive.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So for the founders that are listening, how do you
allocate engineering resources?
Do you have separate teams, oris your team focused on both but
just it's an 80-20 rule or it'ssplit up a different way?
How are you guys approachingthat from a resourcing
perspective?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
That was just an average question.
That was better than mine, butthat one didn't hit the grade
level.
I've gotten out of the businessof rating Harvey's questions.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
I'm going to leave that to Josh.
I'm just going to assume thatall his questions are great, as
are yours, josh.
They're all excellent and I'mnot going to comment anymore.
Uh, so we, the way that wethink about it, uh, holistically
(31:47):
is is in use cases.
So let's take our likeschoolhouse or our academy use
case and that's for new hireonboarding.
That use case, while slightdifferences, is the same for
schoolhouses.
It's the same for a new personcoming in and learning their
particular rate in thedepartment of fence.
It's the same for a new personcoming in and learning their
particular rate in thedepartment of fence.
It's the same for hiring a newlife sciences or pharmaceutical
sales rep and their at homestudy.
It's the same as NTG Freighthiring their new person who
(32:10):
needs to come and learn thefreight industry.
Like that Academy use case ofonboarding somebody faster, more
effectively, somebody fasterand more effectively.
It's different in terms of thelength of time.
It's different in terms of thematerial you need to know, but
the key core pieces of it, ofhow do you transform the
material really quickly, how doyou get into the brains of
somebody very effectively, howdo you learn the ultimate folks
with knowledge about where arethe gaps in their understanding
(32:32):
and how do you do that asquickly as possible to get them
up to speed as fast as possibleso they can be out and
productive in their job asquickly as they can, is the same
, and so we will pick that aslike a use case and we will have
our teamwork on that, agnosticof whether or not it is a
Department of Defense problemset or whether it is a
commercial one, and we havesimilar types of use cases that
(32:54):
our engineering team work on,whether it's that or whether
it's more of the sort ofcontinuous training and
onboarding or continuoustraining things that we have to
do.
That is much more like a newproduct gets rolled out or
there's a new update to aparticular system.
The Fitzgerald McCain has a new, a new rollout, and you've got
(33:16):
to train a lot of folks reallyquickly on how to use this
particular DoD system.
Like that's the same as a newproduct that gets rolled out.
Uh, for a pharma company you'vegot to retrain everybody on
what that is.
Or like the conventional ledscan't change, you go train.
Like that's a different usecase, but again it aligns very
similarly between the two.
Um, now there's certain thingsthat we have to like carve out
(33:36):
an engineering team on and havethem focus on.
That's really only for the onegroup.
Like being able to deliver upto impact.
Level six is helpful for ourcommercial customers, but they
don't need that level ofsecurity most of the time.
So that's like a DoD specificthing, but mostly we think about
it as use cases.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Sorry, I interrupted.
I apologize, harvey, and it'sgoing to go back to Sasha.
It's interesting for me as Ikind of peel back out a level.
You know my job.
I work with all of ourcorporate partners and one of
the things that we hear on aregular basis is the workforce
has changed so much post-COVID,specifically in the deskless
workforce.
So many folks now are trying toautomate these entry-level jobs
(34:14):
and things of that nature,which means upskilling and
training folks to dohigher-level jobs.
And, boy, like it fitsperfectly with what you are
doing, right?
It all kind of intertwines.
It just makes a lot of sensethat there's a need for this in
pretty much every single companyright now, based on what we
just talked about around theworkforce post-COVID.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, that wasn't a question, but it was still a
great.
It was still a great answer.
You can find it atwwwlearn2wincom.
You can find it atwwwlearn2wincom.
You can email me.
It was an observation.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I thought I'd lay that out there.
It just kind of hit me.
This all puts togetherperfectly with a great
opportunity for you guys.
So not a great question, but agreat observation.
Yeah, great observation.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
We have seen a huge boost.
I mean, there's a couple ofdifferent things that have
really helped us as a business.
I think part of being a founderof a company is to work very
hard, to care a lot about yourteam, to have a great idea, to
be very gritty and resilient.
A lot of those things come intoit.
(35:16):
There's also about being reallylucky and having really great
timing, and I think for us, theCOVID world and shift to a more
deskless workforce and all ofthe changes that came with it
were a great opportunity for usto bring in a tool that could
help people adapt to that very,very quickly.
I think that the rise in AI hasbeen phenomenal for us, mostly
(35:37):
because, again, there's a lot ofthings you need to retrain
folks on very quickly and B theway that AI has transformed our
product in terms of our accuracyand our ability to be able to
take pre-existing content andconvert it into our platform,
how we can arm folks to be ableto build and create their own
content, and it's a lot of thethings that we're doing with
sort of AI and analytics.
(35:57):
A lot of the things that we'redoing with sort of ai and
analytics like we are veryquickly shifting our product to
being almost entirely aioriented in a way that uh was
just sort of not possible for ustwo years ago.
Um, so it feels cool to be uhsort of on this kind of like.
Don't want to be on thefortunate end of a timing
perspective that ultimately,like I wish I was a sage and
(36:17):
could have predicted that thiswould happen, but some ways you
kind of be there to be luckyrather than smart, I also think
from a from a dual useperspective to your point,
harley, I think I think we wehad a lot of conviction early on
that there was an opportunityin the department of fence, both
from my personal experiences,having gone through a lot of the
dodD training cycles as well,as just a view of like this is a
(36:40):
really big opportunity.
They care a lot about outcomes.
We training is incrediblyimportant to the Department of
Defense.
If you're not fighting yourtraining and some of the
underlying thinking that we hadabout great power competition
with Russia and China, like wecould see that all happening and
so we took a bet on it early onwhen folks said this wasn't a
(37:00):
great idea and I think has justput us in a position where being
dual use is now really cool.
There's tons of opportunity inthe space and we've already
spent the time and energy tobuild relationships, have a
platform that can do securelevel training, have all the
contracting vehicles to be ableto work with the department of
defense.
It's just been a really greattime.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
What's been the most recent inflection point for the
business?
Is it the advancement in AItools that we've all seen in the
past 12 months?
Is it the dual use piece?
What's been that moment whereyou guys, the founding team,
looks back and says we hit thislittle mario kart star and we
(37:46):
went?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
that way yeah yeah, um, and I think I really think
the and this wasn't like a onemoment in time, this was sort of
like over the past couple ofyears, but I really do think
(38:07):
that the advances in ai over thecourse of the past couple of
years have made it possible forus to do things in the learning
world and in the training worldthat, prior to a few years ago,
(38:27):
was fantasy world.
Ultimately, we will be in aposition very soon where you
will be able to take ourplatform and say all right, I am
the training leader at Novartis, one of our customers on the
life sciences side, and I needto be able to develop training
(38:51):
for my new sales reps or my newMSLs, and it's on this
particular drug that's gettingrolled out.
I want the Learn to Win tool tobe able to read these documents
pre approved, to be able toactually for our team to go work
off of.
I want them to build anexcellent onboarding.
I want it to make sure that itcovers these five things.
(39:14):
I want to make sure that it hasthese six competency levels
that they are fluent on.
These are really key outcomesfor me and I want to make sure
that it develops a drip processsuch that over the course of the
next year, this informationstays top of mind for them and I
can be confident that, as asales and training leader, that
(39:36):
my team understands these sixthings that they need to
communicate to a physician Goand the tool can actually build
and create that.
Are we there right now, today?
No, but the pieces are in placefor us to be able to do that
and that sort of future world ofboth being able to really
rapidly create this trainingmaterial, be able to deliver it
(39:58):
in a way that is sort ofseamless and effective and to
give you insight on what are themetrics that matter for your
team and be able to change themand adapt them really fast.
Like that's not something thatwould have been possible three
years ago, like if we hadimagined it, but like we
couldn't actually do it and nowwe're in a world where we can
actually work towards that andit's very possible.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
That's going to make sense.
We're coming up on timeAnything else that you want to
cover that we didn't cover, andmake sure you close with us with
how to reach you, email address, website and other things so it
was basically like anythingelse I want to cover yeah,
anything else that we didn't hiton, anything else that you want
(40:40):
to leave the audience with, andthen let us know how to get in
touch with you.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Basically, the shameless plugs portion.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah well, I'll say a couple different things yeah,
first, just uh always, alwaysappreciative of the tremendous
honor to be on the WhiskeredWarriors podcast, despite the
fact that I have no whiskers.
I'll say thanks again to thePlug and Play team.
You have been phenomenalinvestors in our company.
(41:07):
We have, I think, at this point, five different relationships
where you're either in a pilotor fully rolled out across an
organization.
That all started from folks whogot introduced to us from the
plug and play side.
You saw a problem.
You thought Learn to Win couldsolve it.
You've made the connection andwe are now actively rolled out
across those organizations and Ican go through them if it's
(41:28):
helpful.
But just really appreciate youguys.
And I guess the last piece isthat if you're listening to this
and any of this sounded like athing that we could help with
whether it's some last milelearning or training problem
would love to connect.
And even if it's somethingwhere you're like, hey, this
sounded really interesting andI'd love to work with you guys
on how to come up with asolution.
(41:49):
We love to co-develop thingswith our partners and our
customers.
Ultimately, what we need onyour side is a commitment to
really wanting to improve howyou guys are doing training,
teaching, learning, and we cansort of come up together with
some really creative ideas,which we've done with customers
in the past.
So the way to reach mewwwlearntowincom.
(42:10):
You can find me on LinkedIn,sasha Seymour.
Email is just sasha atlearntowincom.
Anything else that'd be helpful?
I can send you my Instagram orsomething To be clear.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
If somebody wanted to reach out to you for an
introduction of Carter, kennySmith, michael Jordan, antoine
Jameson, like those, that's notwhat we're doing, right?
We?
We, we're not going toreconnect with some of the, the
OGs and the legend.
This is specifically forbusiness, correct?
Yeah, correct, correct, allright, just making sure, because
I'd love to meet those people,but I also would rather spend
time with you.
I would too.
They probably wouldn'trecognize me, but I'd rather
(42:44):
talk to you because the stuffthat you're doing is
revolutionary and it's.
I don't want to speak forHarvey, but I know he wouldn't
want to say how amazing thepartnership has been with you
guys and we're just hitting theground with you.
Harvey, anything you want toadd there?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
for all those people that uh, recently tossed,
shattered, wrapped around a stopsign pole, um, with your ping
clubs, please remember a lot ofcare goes into manufacturing
those clubs.
So, josh, next time you get alittle angry on the links,
remember this conversation.
I will.
I will, but the more, the moreyou break your clubs, the more
(43:20):
ping needs to manufacture moreclubs, which is more times they
need to rely on sasha fortraining their people how to
make them.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
So actually I reverse my take, please smash I'm
agnostic to club smashing here,the similar way that I'm
agnostic to to smashing here.
It's a different way that I'magnostic to Harvey's level of
quality of question.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
There, it's a Friday.
Look it's.
Ups and downs, highs and lows.
Sasha, this has been awesomeman, thank you.
Thank you, sasha.
Founders, please, if you wantto get in touch with Sasha, if
you want to talk about stuff wedidn't get a chance to cover,
like fundraising how how do youhire the right team to sell into
the government versuscommercial, because that's
another podcast in and of itself.
It can get nasty there.
Let me know and then we can tryto set up an opportunity for
(44:04):
you to meet with Sasha, and thatwould be a good follow-up.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Harvey at PNPTCcom.
That's a shameless plug for you.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
That is a shame.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I know how much you love emails flooding your inbox,
I figured I'd throw that outthere.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, I much you love emails flooding your inbox, I
figure you throw that out there.
Yeah, I prefer uh cash appvenmo.
There's a lot of other ways youcan reach me on goodreads if
you want to find me on goodreads.
Sasha, what are you readingright now?
Hold on, before we leave.
Before we leave, sasha has aspecial place in my heart
because he introduced me to thename of the wind, uh, and then
subsequently wise man's fear,which is, hands down, probably
the best fantasy in like adecade.
Sadly, it's been a decade sincehe released the first book.
(44:41):
We still don't have the thirdbook yet.
But what are you reading atthis moment?
Speaker 3 (44:45):
so I read.
I share a love for uh, forfiction novels, specifically
fantasy fiction, king killerchronicles favorite ones in the
world.
If you haven't read them,absolutely wonderful.
Um, I'll give two answers tothat question.
The first one probably threemonths ago, I finished reading
the Sword of Kaijin by ML Wang.
It's kind of like this Avatar,last Airbender world, but it was
(45:08):
phenomenal.
So that's my first one.
The one that I'm actuallyreading today, if you want an
honest answer, is the Mistbornseries.
I'm about halfway through thethird one.
Very excellent, not like Swordof Kaijin or Kingkiller
Chronicles level excellent, butstill very good.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
So that is on my nightstand at the moment the
first Mistborn.
Really they're good and theLies of Locke Lamora, but I have
not heard of the Sword ofKaijin.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Dude, you've got to read Sword of Kaijin.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
It's so good, done easy.
I'm gonna just like put thoseother two on the side.
Josh, what are you reading?
Uh, my, my, my educationallevel.
I'm reading like peoplemagazine, a little tmz, maybe
you know.
That's kind of focused for me.
I got six kids at home.
I don't have time to barely getsix kids.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
You're in the bird scene bears, correct, yeah,
correct, correct, correct.
Yeah, my nephew's just got intocaptain underpants.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
So you got six kids.
You read the Birdseed Bears,correct, yeah, correct, correct,
correct.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
My nephew's just got into Captain Underpants, so
that's what.
I'm a big reader of that whenI'm back in Greenville, North
Carolina.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
I didn't think we'd get into Captain Underpants, Dan
Apoc.
This is why you never knowwhere this is going to go.
You never know where it's goingto go.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
You shouldn't have brought me on if the captain
underpants is going to come up.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Thank you, sasha.
A pleasure, continued success.
We appreciate the relationshipwith you and thanks for making
the time for us today.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, appreciate it, harvey, and.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Josh, bye, guys, bye.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.