August 4, 2025 • 21 mins
In this enlightening episode, David Hirschfeld, Founder and CEO of Tekyz Inc, shares how AI transforms entrepreneurship for non-tech and tech founders. If you struggle with leveraging AI or validating business ideas, you won't want to miss it.
You will discover:
- Why AI simplifies market research and planning for stage 1 non-tech founders
- How to use AI to ask the right questions for business success
- What Launch First methodology prioritizes sales before building products
This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 1,2 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz
David Hirschfeld is a 35-year software development veteran. David's career spans leadership roles at tech giants like Computer Associates, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Motorola before launching his first startup—which grew to 800 customers across 22 countries and was successfully sold in 2000. David has emerged as a strategic advisor specializing in AI-driven workflow transformation for scaleups and in the design & development of startups. He developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding.
Want to learn more about David Hirschfeld's work at Tekyz Inc? Check out his website at https://tekyz.com/
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Ritzheimer (00:00):
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once
(00:02):
again to the start, scale andsucceed. Podcast, the only
podcast that grows with youthrough all seven stages of
your journey. As a founder andthroughout history, there have
been technologies that havechanged almost everything
about our daily life. But thischange process used to take
100 years, and now it seems tobe happening every 100 Days,
AI is changing everything, andtoday we're going to explore
(00:24):
whether we've seen the age ofthe non tech founder, and if
you've started a business orare thinking about it, you're
going to want to listen in tofind out how AI is about to
change your world, if ithasn't already, and here to
explain not only what'shappening, but how you can use
it to your advantage is theone and only David Hirschfeld,
a 35 year software developmentveteran. And David's career
(00:49):
spans leadership roles at techgiants like computer
associates, Texas,instruments, Intel, Motorola,
before launching his firststartup, which grew to 800
customers across 22 countriesand was successfully sold in
the year 2000 David emerged asa strategic advisor
specializing in AI drivenworkflow transformation for
scale ups and in the designand development of startups.
(01:13):
He developed the launch firstmethod, a systematic approach
that minimizes risks andaccelerates software company
success with reduced relianceon investor funding. He's here
with us today, David, I kindof have two parts to this
conversation that I want tofocus on. And I want to start
off with what wouldtraditionally be considered
non tech businesses, socoaches, consultants like
(01:36):
myself, hair cutting, lawnmowing, the kind of many blue
collar industries,traditionally non technical.
How are you seeing the AI kindof revolution, if you will,
transforming entrepreneurshipand and why should they see
it, this as an opportunityrather than a threat?
David Hirschfeld (01:58):
Well, first of all, thank you for having
me on the show, and I reallyappreciate the opportunity to
speak to your audience aboutthese types of issues. So AI,
what's going on right now, andit's and it's evolving so
fast, is this AI revolutionthat we're having? And non
(02:19):
technical founders, let's sayif you're low like if, let's
say you're a heating and airconditioning company. Because
a friend of mine owns aheating and air conditioning
company, and he was strugglingwith what to do during the off
season, because his businessis in in Phoenix, and so they
have a huge summer season,right? And they just can't,
(02:41):
they can't install systemsfast enough, but during the
winter, nobody's buying airconditioning. So he wasn't
sure what the best things todo. And so we did a little jam
session with with chat GPT,basically having it put
together a marketing campaignand sales approach for what to
(03:02):
do in the off season. It was amulti stepped plan that had
that basically also had allthe detail associated with it
and and at the end of it, thiswas a 30 minute little session
I did with him. He had a planall printed out on exactly
what he was going to do, manythings he hadn't thought
about. So this is a very easyconsumable, accessible to
(03:28):
anybody, kind of capabilitythat AI gives us that was not
available to us in the past. Imean, you would have had to do
a ton of research and huntedthrough the internet trying to
find what other people havedone and coalesced all that
information into some kind ofplan, and that would have
taken days or weeks, and maybeit required some consulting,
(03:49):
and now you can do it in justa few minutes with a chat GPT
tool and and knowing how toask the right questions.
Scott Ritzheimer (03:56):
Stunning, stunning. We're going to get
to those in our audience aremore tech driven founders, but
before we get there, one ofthe challenges for non tech
founders is they aren'tsoftware developers, and I
think you'd appreciate this.They don't really think like
software developers, either.And so because of that, it can
(04:19):
feel intimidating to getstarted, and then even once we
get started, you brought thisup, we don't necessarily ask
the right questions or move inthe right direction. So how
can, how can folks think abouthow to leverage AI in their
business so that they startoff on the right foot?
David Hirschfeld (04:39):
Well, that's maybe one of the best things
about AI is you can just a askAI that question, and it will
give you guidance on how to doit. And there's so much
capability and tools availablein with and all you need is
just an interface to somethinglike chat GPT or Claude or
your favorite AI chat tool.You. And just start asking it,
(05:01):
and don't assume you have toknow the question. Just ask
it. What question should I beasking? Here's what I want to
accomplish. Or where should Istart with this? Here's what I
want to accomplish. Or I don'teven know what I should be
wanting to accomplish. What'srealistic? What do you Where
should I start with this wholething? You don't have to
really know a lot. You justhave to kind of channel your
(05:21):
inner five year old and not beafraid to ask questions. And
yeah, if you can get pastthat, you're gonna make a lot
of progress, really fast.
Scott Ritzheimer (05:31):
It's so cool, because, you know, if
you asked a printing press howto use a printing press, it
probably wouldn't have gonevery well for you. But just a
huge, a huge testament to theamount of change that we're
facing right now. So you havethis methodology called your
launch first methodology, andI'm wondering if you could
(05:51):
just unpack this for us,because I know it's, it's
centered on tech startups, andI want to dive into that a
little bit. But one of thethings that just struck a
chord with me was how true theprinciples were in other
industries as well. Sostarting in the context of
your work, working with techcompanies, how does launch
first work? What's themethodology and why is it so
effective?
David Hirschfeld (06:12):
Okay, so, so the launch first basically
shifts the model for a techstartup at the very earliest
stage. So the typical modelis, you design your product,
you create a minimum viableproduct, we call them MVPs,
and you create a pitch deck,and you go and raise money.
(06:34):
And this has been the sort ofthe standard way of thinking
about a software startup, orSaaS software startup for the
last 20 years or so. And theproblem with that is you have
to make a huge investment onsomething before you ever
prove that you have productmarket fit. Product Market Fit
means that people will buyyour product at a high enough
(06:55):
price, at a high enoughclosing ratio that you can be
profitable. And you don't knowthat until you start selling
it and but when you build yourMVP, make this huge, very
often hundreds of 1000s ofdollar investment before you
ever get any sales, and you'retrying to raise money
convincing potential investorsthat you have something
worthwhile to invest in, butyou don't have any proof. So
(07:18):
what launch first says is thisis kind of not the right way
to approach this instead, whydon't you go out and and start
selling first? That's why it'scalled Launch first. Launch
your sales and marketingengine before you build the
product. And people go, Well,how do you do that? Well,
there are lots of examples ofsuccessful companies that
(07:39):
launched this way, I'll giveyou probably the most famous
one, whether you like the guyor not. Elon Musk started
Tesla by creating a prototypeof his sports car and went out
and sold several 1000 of thosewithout a working model of
(08:02):
anything. He just had aprototype. So what we do?
Right? Right? So he didn'thave to prove anybody that it
really worked. He had just allthe proof from a science
perspective, perspective onhow he was going to make this
work, and a physical prototypeso people could see what they
were buying into and andpeople thought, well, this is
(08:23):
worth taking a chance on. Thisis just too cool. So they did.
So they bought, and he bought,sold enough of them that he
proved that he could be have aprofitable business. You can
do the same thing with asoftware company, or you can
do the same thing with a lotof different types of
companies. If it's a uniqueproduct that you're selling
that you're creating for sale,whether it's technology or a
(08:45):
physical product. And peopledo this with physical
products. Often they'll createa prototype of the product
they're going to produce. Infact, the crowdsourcing world
like, what's that startupwebsite where people put their
products out there and then dopre sales before they've ever
even manufactured the product.Now, it just slipped my mind
(09:07):
the name,
Scott Ritzheimer (09:07):
mine too. I'm dying to find the name.
Okay, Kickstarter, something.
David Hirschfeld (09:11):
Okay, thank you. Kickstarter, right?
That's all. That's exactlywhat that is. It's selling
before you build and most ofthe products there, in fact, I
bought one many years ago onKickstarter that had, they had
not it was two years beforethey came out with the
product, but I brought it,bought it in advance, because
I thought it was really cool.So this is the idea. And then
(09:33):
once you've proven that youcan sell it and that there's
enough business, you haveproduct market fit, then you
build the product.
Scott Ritzheimer (09:39):
Yeah, here's what I love about that, and
this applies to every everykind of business, is no one
buys products because youthink they're great, right?
And no one makes a productthat they don't think is
great. To some extent, youknow that there can be changes
to it, but just because youthink. Something is a good
(10:00):
idea doesn't mean that it is.And just because you can build
that good idea doesn't meanyou've solved the biggest
problem that's in front ofyou, and that is, Will people
buy that idea? And so thething that we teach here at
scale architects is the numberone thing you have to do as a
startup, one is stop being onebut but the way that you do
that is by finding aprofitable, sustainable
(10:22):
market. And so I love thisabout the methodology that it
takes it and puts it in theright order, saying, Hey, you
have to solve the salesproblem first. Because if you
do, then you can design tomeet that promise, right? Then
you can actually work on onsomething that has been
validated. And it's notnecessarily an an easier
strategy, at least it hasn'tbeen until some of the
(10:44):
technological changes, but itis a much surer strategy. It's
fascinating. I love, I lovethe example.
David Hirschfeld (10:53):
Well, yeah, that brings that brings up
that brings up a whole aspectabout what you're doing when
you're starting a company,excuse me, Barbie. So if
you're solving somethingbecause you have a good idea,
(11:13):
or if you're trying to start abusiness because you think you
have a good idea, you'reprobably going to fail. You
know, founders come to me allthe time saying, you know,
I've got this great idea. Ithink it's going to be wildly
successful. It might even be aunicorn. People are gonna, you
know, this is all code wordsfor I'm gonna fail. And when
founders focus on the problem,they love the problem, not the
(11:35):
product. If they're in lovewith the product, they're
already in the going in thewrong direction. But if
they're in love with theproblem, and they spend all
their time talking to codetime talking to customers
about their problems, nevertalk about your product. Just
talk about your the problemsthat customers are struggling
with, and quantify it. Howmuch does this problem
personally impact you? Howmuch does this problem
(11:56):
actually cost you? Becausethose two numbers are not
necessarily aligned with eachother. What have you tried
done to try to mitigate thisproblem in the past? How many
other people in your companyare affected by this problem,
or in your industry, this is acommon problem. Is there
products out there that canaddress this problem? Why
(12:16):
aren't you using it? Have youtried it in the past? These
are the kinds of things youspend all your time talking
about this, and then there'san the natural conclusion will
be something to mitigate theproblem, which is the thing
you create, yeah, not thething to be in love with. Just
stay in love with the problem,and you'll find a path to
success in a much higherpercentage of the time.
Scott Ritzheimer (12:38):
That is an unbelievably true point.
Unbelievably true. I've gotone more question from a tech
perspective here, and that isfor for we're going to go non
tech for just a second again.So for non tech founders, it's
kind of easy to think ofsomething like a landscaping
company is not benefiting fromAi other than maybe some
(13:00):
market research or or in it.Not nothing to take away from
that, but it's more than that.So what are, what are some of
the ways that you're seeingmore traditional industries
leveraging AI for either rapidprototyping, for for reduced
development costs? What arethey building to get an
advantage?
David Hirschfeld (13:20):
Well, for sure, in the marketing aspect,
marketing automation, AI isreally helping everybody in
this respect, and it's veryearly. So if you haven't
looked for ways ofaccelerating your marketing
through AI, there are toolsthat are coming out all the
time to help you do this.Automating workflows any place
(13:44):
where you have a manualprocess involved that's costly
in terms of time or becauseyou have to hire people to do
it, most of that stuff can bereplaced now with some kind of
automation tool, a lot of itdriven by AI, but there's all
kinds of creative things thatAI does, like like writing
proposals, putting togetherplans, you know, project
(14:11):
plans, things like that. Itcan be done so much faster and
easier and often a lot moreaccurately using AI, not that
you don't have involvement inthe process, but that it just
facilitates and streamlines alot of this. I'll give you an
anecdotal example that my wifeused recently. We're in the
(14:32):
matter of fact, we're in themiddle of this big landscaping
project right now, and thebiggest motivation is she
wants to grow all of our ownfood. She loves gardening and
and so we've got these eightlarge beds that we had to
redesign our backyard so thatwe could put these beds out
here, so she could spend alltheir time. And she wanted to
(14:54):
figure out, Okay, how manybeds do I need, and how am I
going to plan and schedule theplanting? And so she had a
conversation with chat GPTsaid, we live in this part of
the country, and I want togrow all our own food. How
many beds do we need? Andwe're primarily we eat mostly
plant based stuff. And so cameup with a number, and said,
(15:14):
Okay, I how do I plan what togrow? I want to be able to
have food harvest all yearround. And we live in San
Diego area, so we can actuallygrow all of our own food all
year round. And it came upwith a planting schedule. I
said, What about companionplanting, which means that
it's in a in a bed. You don'twant to plant certain things
(15:37):
that will conflict with eachother, because neither will
grow well, right? So you putcompanion plants in there. And
so it said, these are, here'seight beds. And and it
numbered the beds and createda table, and said, what should
go in each of the beds? And Isaid, what about what about
companion flowers? Because youyou want to line the bed with
certain types of flowers thatwill draw the bugs away from
(15:59):
that particular typevegetable, for example. And so
it gave us that plantingschedule. And then I said,
What about she said, Whatabout succession planting, so
that when you harvestsomething out of a bed and you
plant the next thing in there,it has to be compatible with
what was in there before, andso and so it basically for all
all the seasons. It created aschedule of what plants go
(16:20):
into each of the beds, whatflowers plant with it and what
follows it, season by season,fascinating, and like a 3040,
minute conversation, and shehad what would have taken her
days of work and research todo.
Scott Ritzheimer (16:35):
Amazing, amazing. David, there's a
question that I have and askthem, I ask all my guests, I'm
interested to see what youhave to say. And the question
is this, what would you say isthe biggest secret that you
wish wasn't a secret at all?What? What's that one thing
you want everybody watchingand listening today to
remember?
David Hirschfeld (16:52):
Well, the biggest thing is, the biggest
secret that shouldn't be asecret is you can sell your
product before you build it,and so go out and test the
market by selling, because ifnobody wants to buy the thing
that you're talking aboutbuilding, then there's
probably a problem with theproblem with the product or
your message or your approach.And just keep testing
(17:13):
different versions and anglesof it and and asking them why,
what problems they'restruggling with. And
eventually you'll either nailthe right thing or realize
this is not a good idea tostart this business. Which
part of launch first is failfast and cheap, right? If
you're going to fail fail fastand cheap, because that's not
how most people fail. Theyfail in large numbers, but
(17:35):
it's usually very long, takesa long time and costs a
fortune. So I'd much rathersee people fail really quickly
if they're going to fail andand move on with their lives.
Scott Ritzheimer (17:50):
Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant. So for
folks listening and who wouldlike help, especially through
this launch first program,where can they find more out
about what the program is,what it entails. And how can I
get connected with you?
David Hirschfeld (18:04):
Okay, you can find me at tekyz.com
spelled T, E, k, y, z.com, andjust go to the contact us
page. Or if you made it allthe way to the end of the this
episode, you can email medirectly at david@tekyz.com
and and if you search for meon LinkedIn, you can find me
pretty easily, brilliant.
Scott Ritzheimer (18:24):
David, thanks for being on the shows
a privilege and honor. Havingyou here today, I really
appreciate it. And for thoseof you watching and listening,
you know your time andattention mean the world to
us, I hope you got as much outof this conversation as I know
I did, and I cannot wait tosee you next time. Take care.
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once
(00:02):
again to the start, scale andsucceed. Podcast, the only
podcast that grows with youthrough all seven stages of
your journey. As a founder andthroughout history, there have
been technologies that havechanged almost everything
about our daily life. But thischange process used to take
100 years, and now it seems tobe happening every 100 Days,
AI is changing everything, andtoday we're going to explore
(00:24):
whether we've seen the age ofthe non tech founder, and if
you've started a business orare thinking about it, you're
going to want to listen in tofind out how AI is about to
change your world, if ithasn't already, and here to
explain not only what'shappening, but how you can use
it to your advantage is theone and only David Hirschfeld,
a 35 year software developmentveteran. And David's career
(00:49):
spans leadership roles at techgiants like computer
associates, Texas,instruments, Intel, Motorola,
before launching his firststartup, which grew to 800
customers across 22 countriesand was successfully sold in
the year 2000 David emerged asa strategic advisor
specializing in AI drivenworkflow transformation for
scale ups and in the designand development of startups.
(01:13):
He developed the launch firstmethod, a systematic approach
that minimizes risks andaccelerates software company
success with reduced relianceon investor funding. He's here
with us today, David, I kindof have two parts to this
conversation that I want tofocus on. And I want to start
off with what wouldtraditionally be considered
non tech businesses, socoaches, consultants like
(01:36):
myself, hair cutting, lawnmowing, the kind of many blue
collar industries,traditionally non technical.
How are you seeing the AI kindof revolution, if you will,
transforming entrepreneurshipand and why should they see
it, this as an opportunityrather than a threat?
David Hirschfeld (01:58):
Well, first of all, thank you for having
me on the show, and I reallyappreciate the opportunity to
speak to your audience aboutthese types of issues. So AI,
what's going on right now, andit's and it's evolving so
fast, is this AI revolutionthat we're having? And non
(02:19):
technical founders, let's sayif you're low like if, let's
say you're a heating and airconditioning company. Because
a friend of mine owns aheating and air conditioning
company, and he was strugglingwith what to do during the off
season, because his businessis in in Phoenix, and so they
have a huge summer season,right? And they just can't,
(02:41):
they can't install systemsfast enough, but during the
winter, nobody's buying airconditioning. So he wasn't
sure what the best things todo. And so we did a little jam
session with with chat GPT,basically having it put
together a marketing campaignand sales approach for what to
(03:02):
do in the off season. It was amulti stepped plan that had
that basically also had allthe detail associated with it
and and at the end of it, thiswas a 30 minute little session
I did with him. He had a planall printed out on exactly
what he was going to do, manythings he hadn't thought
about. So this is a very easyconsumable, accessible to
(03:28):
anybody, kind of capabilitythat AI gives us that was not
available to us in the past. Imean, you would have had to do
a ton of research and huntedthrough the internet trying to
find what other people havedone and coalesced all that
information into some kind ofplan, and that would have
taken days or weeks, and maybeit required some consulting,
(03:49):
and now you can do it in justa few minutes with a chat GPT
tool and and knowing how toask the right questions.
Scott Ritzheimer (03:56):
Stunning, stunning. We're going to get
to those in our audience aremore tech driven founders, but
before we get there, one ofthe challenges for non tech
founders is they aren'tsoftware developers, and I
think you'd appreciate this.They don't really think like
software developers, either.And so because of that, it can
(04:19):
feel intimidating to getstarted, and then even once we
get started, you brought thisup, we don't necessarily ask
the right questions or move inthe right direction. So how
can, how can folks think abouthow to leverage AI in their
business so that they startoff on the right foot?
David Hirschfeld (04:39):
Well, that's maybe one of the best things
about AI is you can just a askAI that question, and it will
give you guidance on how to doit. And there's so much
capability and tools availablein with and all you need is
just an interface to somethinglike chat GPT or Claude or
your favorite AI chat tool.You. And just start asking it,
(05:01):
and don't assume you have toknow the question. Just ask
it. What question should I beasking? Here's what I want to
accomplish. Or where should Istart with this? Here's what I
want to accomplish. Or I don'teven know what I should be
wanting to accomplish. What'srealistic? What do you Where
should I start with this wholething? You don't have to
really know a lot. You justhave to kind of channel your
(05:21):
inner five year old and not beafraid to ask questions. And
yeah, if you can get pastthat, you're gonna make a lot
of progress, really fast.
Scott Ritzheimer (05:31):
It's so cool, because, you know, if
you asked a printing press howto use a printing press, it
probably wouldn't have gonevery well for you. But just a
huge, a huge testament to theamount of change that we're
facing right now. So you havethis methodology called your
launch first methodology, andI'm wondering if you could
(05:51):
just unpack this for us,because I know it's, it's
centered on tech startups, andI want to dive into that a
little bit. But one of thethings that just struck a
chord with me was how true theprinciples were in other
industries as well. Sostarting in the context of
your work, working with techcompanies, how does launch
first work? What's themethodology and why is it so
effective?
David Hirschfeld (06:12):
Okay, so, so the launch first basically
shifts the model for a techstartup at the very earliest
stage. So the typical modelis, you design your product,
you create a minimum viableproduct, we call them MVPs,
and you create a pitch deck,and you go and raise money.
(06:34):
And this has been the sort ofthe standard way of thinking
about a software startup, orSaaS software startup for the
last 20 years or so. And theproblem with that is you have
to make a huge investment onsomething before you ever
prove that you have productmarket fit. Product Market Fit
means that people will buyyour product at a high enough
(06:55):
price, at a high enoughclosing ratio that you can be
profitable. And you don't knowthat until you start selling
it and but when you build yourMVP, make this huge, very
often hundreds of 1000s ofdollar investment before you
ever get any sales, and you'retrying to raise money
convincing potential investorsthat you have something
worthwhile to invest in, butyou don't have any proof. So
(07:18):
what launch first says is thisis kind of not the right way
to approach this instead, whydon't you go out and and start
selling first? That's why it'scalled Launch first. Launch
your sales and marketingengine before you build the
product. And people go, Well,how do you do that? Well,
there are lots of examples ofsuccessful companies that
(07:39):
launched this way, I'll giveyou probably the most famous
one, whether you like the guyor not. Elon Musk started
Tesla by creating a prototypeof his sports car and went out
and sold several 1000 of thosewithout a working model of
(08:02):
anything. He just had aprototype. So what we do?
Right? Right? So he didn'thave to prove anybody that it
really worked. He had just allthe proof from a science
perspective, perspective onhow he was going to make this
work, and a physical prototypeso people could see what they
were buying into and andpeople thought, well, this is
(08:23):
worth taking a chance on. Thisis just too cool. So they did.
So they bought, and he bought,sold enough of them that he
proved that he could be have aprofitable business. You can
do the same thing with asoftware company, or you can
do the same thing with a lotof different types of
companies. If it's a uniqueproduct that you're selling
that you're creating for sale,whether it's technology or a
(08:45):
physical product. And peopledo this with physical
products. Often they'll createa prototype of the product
they're going to produce. Infact, the crowdsourcing world
like, what's that startupwebsite where people put their
products out there and then dopre sales before they've ever
even manufactured the product.Now, it just slipped my mind
(09:07):
the name,
Scott Ritzheimer (09:07):
mine too. I'm dying to find the name.
Okay, Kickstarter, something.
David Hirschfeld (09:11):
Okay, thank you. Kickstarter, right?
That's all. That's exactlywhat that is. It's selling
before you build and most ofthe products there, in fact, I
bought one many years ago onKickstarter that had, they had
not it was two years beforethey came out with the
product, but I brought it,bought it in advance, because
I thought it was really cool.So this is the idea. And then
(09:33):
once you've proven that youcan sell it and that there's
enough business, you haveproduct market fit, then you
build the product.
Scott Ritzheimer (09:39):
Yeah, here's what I love about that, and
this applies to every everykind of business, is no one
buys products because youthink they're great, right?
And no one makes a productthat they don't think is
great. To some extent, youknow that there can be changes
to it, but just because youthink. Something is a good
(10:00):
idea doesn't mean that it is.And just because you can build
that good idea doesn't meanyou've solved the biggest
problem that's in front ofyou, and that is, Will people
buy that idea? And so thething that we teach here at
scale architects is the numberone thing you have to do as a
startup, one is stop being onebut but the way that you do
that is by finding aprofitable, sustainable
(10:22):
market. And so I love thisabout the methodology that it
takes it and puts it in theright order, saying, Hey, you
have to solve the salesproblem first. Because if you
do, then you can design tomeet that promise, right? Then
you can actually work on onsomething that has been
validated. And it's notnecessarily an an easier
strategy, at least it hasn'tbeen until some of the
(10:44):
technological changes, but itis a much surer strategy. It's
fascinating. I love, I lovethe example.
David Hirschfeld (10:53):
Well, yeah, that brings that brings up
that brings up a whole aspectabout what you're doing when
you're starting a company,excuse me, Barbie. So if
you're solving somethingbecause you have a good idea,
(11:13):
or if you're trying to start abusiness because you think you
have a good idea, you'reprobably going to fail. You
know, founders come to me allthe time saying, you know,
I've got this great idea. Ithink it's going to be wildly
successful. It might even be aunicorn. People are gonna, you
know, this is all code wordsfor I'm gonna fail. And when
founders focus on the problem,they love the problem, not the
(11:35):
product. If they're in lovewith the product, they're
already in the going in thewrong direction. But if
they're in love with theproblem, and they spend all
their time talking to codetime talking to customers
about their problems, nevertalk about your product. Just
talk about your the problemsthat customers are struggling
with, and quantify it. Howmuch does this problem
personally impact you? Howmuch does this problem
(11:56):
actually cost you? Becausethose two numbers are not
necessarily aligned with eachother. What have you tried
done to try to mitigate thisproblem in the past? How many
other people in your companyare affected by this problem,
or in your industry, this is acommon problem. Is there
products out there that canaddress this problem? Why
(12:16):
aren't you using it? Have youtried it in the past? These
are the kinds of things youspend all your time talking
about this, and then there'san the natural conclusion will
be something to mitigate theproblem, which is the thing
you create, yeah, not thething to be in love with. Just
stay in love with the problem,and you'll find a path to
success in a much higherpercentage of the time.
Scott Ritzheimer (12:38):
That is an unbelievably true point.
Unbelievably true. I've gotone more question from a tech
perspective here, and that isfor for we're going to go non
tech for just a second again.So for non tech founders, it's
kind of easy to think ofsomething like a landscaping
company is not benefiting fromAi other than maybe some
(13:00):
market research or or in it.Not nothing to take away from
that, but it's more than that.So what are, what are some of
the ways that you're seeingmore traditional industries
leveraging AI for either rapidprototyping, for for reduced
development costs? What arethey building to get an
advantage?
David Hirschfeld (13:20):
Well, for sure, in the marketing aspect,
marketing automation, AI isreally helping everybody in
this respect, and it's veryearly. So if you haven't
looked for ways ofaccelerating your marketing
through AI, there are toolsthat are coming out all the
time to help you do this.Automating workflows any place
(13:44):
where you have a manualprocess involved that's costly
in terms of time or becauseyou have to hire people to do
it, most of that stuff can bereplaced now with some kind of
automation tool, a lot of itdriven by AI, but there's all
kinds of creative things thatAI does, like like writing
proposals, putting togetherplans, you know, project
(14:11):
plans, things like that. Itcan be done so much faster and
easier and often a lot moreaccurately using AI, not that
you don't have involvement inthe process, but that it just
facilitates and streamlines alot of this. I'll give you an
anecdotal example that my wifeused recently. We're in the
(14:32):
matter of fact, we're in themiddle of this big landscaping
project right now, and thebiggest motivation is she
wants to grow all of our ownfood. She loves gardening and
and so we've got these eightlarge beds that we had to
redesign our backyard so thatwe could put these beds out
here, so she could spend alltheir time. And she wanted to
(14:54):
figure out, Okay, how manybeds do I need, and how am I
going to plan and schedule theplanting? And so she had a
conversation with chat GPTsaid, we live in this part of
the country, and I want togrow all our own food. How
many beds do we need? Andwe're primarily we eat mostly
plant based stuff. And so cameup with a number, and said,
(15:14):
Okay, I how do I plan what togrow? I want to be able to
have food harvest all yearround. And we live in San
Diego area, so we can actuallygrow all of our own food all
year round. And it came upwith a planting schedule. I
said, What about companionplanting, which means that
it's in a in a bed. You don'twant to plant certain things
(15:37):
that will conflict with eachother, because neither will
grow well, right? So you putcompanion plants in there. And
so it said, these are, here'seight beds. And and it
numbered the beds and createda table, and said, what should
go in each of the beds? And Isaid, what about what about
companion flowers? Because youyou want to line the bed with
certain types of flowers thatwill draw the bugs away from
(15:59):
that particular typevegetable, for example. And so
it gave us that plantingschedule. And then I said,
What about she said, Whatabout succession planting, so
that when you harvestsomething out of a bed and you
plant the next thing in there,it has to be compatible with
what was in there before, andso and so it basically for all
all the seasons. It created aschedule of what plants go
(16:20):
into each of the beds, whatflowers plant with it and what
follows it, season by season,fascinating, and like a 3040,
minute conversation, and shehad what would have taken her
days of work and research todo.
Scott Ritzheimer (16:35):
Amazing, amazing. David, there's a
question that I have and askthem, I ask all my guests, I'm
interested to see what youhave to say. And the question
is this, what would you say isthe biggest secret that you
wish wasn't a secret at all?What? What's that one thing
you want everybody watchingand listening today to
remember?
David Hirschfeld (16:52):
Well, the biggest thing is, the biggest
secret that shouldn't be asecret is you can sell your
product before you build it,and so go out and test the
market by selling, because ifnobody wants to buy the thing
that you're talking aboutbuilding, then there's
probably a problem with theproblem with the product or
your message or your approach.And just keep testing
(17:13):
different versions and anglesof it and and asking them why,
what problems they'restruggling with. And
eventually you'll either nailthe right thing or realize
this is not a good idea tostart this business. Which
part of launch first is failfast and cheap, right? If
you're going to fail fail fastand cheap, because that's not
how most people fail. Theyfail in large numbers, but
(17:35):
it's usually very long, takesa long time and costs a
fortune. So I'd much rathersee people fail really quickly
if they're going to fail andand move on with their lives.
Scott Ritzheimer (17:50):
Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant. So for
folks listening and who wouldlike help, especially through
this launch first program,where can they find more out
about what the program is,what it entails. And how can I
get connected with you?
David Hirschfeld (18:04):
Okay, you can find me at tekyz.com
spelled T, E, k, y, z.com, andjust go to the contact us
page. Or if you made it allthe way to the end of the this
episode, you can email medirectly at david@tekyz.com
and and if you search for meon LinkedIn, you can find me
pretty easily, brilliant.
Scott Ritzheimer (18:24):
David, thanks for being on the shows
a privilege and honor. Havingyou here today, I really
appreciate it. And for thoseof you watching and listening,
you know your time andattention mean the world to
us, I hope you got as much outof this conversation as I know
I did, and I cannot wait tosee you next time. Take care.
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