EP 9. Kelsey Nintzel, Head of Product at Bounti.ai

Kelsey Nintzel, Head of Product at Bounti.ai discusses her background in marketing and product management, the overlap between the two fields, and the importance of understanding consumer psychology.

Check out the episode below.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Kelsey discusses her journey from a childhood focused on the arts to pursuing a career in marketing, and reflects on the balance between creativity and business. Kelsey also discusses the regrets and lessons she has learned along the way. She recommends several books, including 'Sprint' by Jake Knapp, 'The Book of Why' by Judea Pearl, and 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins.

Finally, she emphasizes the importance of listening to all voices in decision-making processes. In this conversation, Kelsey Nintzel discusses collaboration and open communication, emphasizing the importance of creating a space for team members to share their ideas.

She also highlights the role of a supportive partner in her personal and professional growth. Kelsey shares her decision to leave a comfortable job and pursue a new opportunity, encouraging others to take the leap when they feel ready. She explains how to apply the Sprint methodology to prototype and test ideas, and suggests starting small and gathering feedback from potential customers. Kelsey also shares her accomplishment in using AI and machine learning for data analysis, and invites listeners to connect with her on LinkedIn.

Takeaways

• There is significant overlap between product management and marketing, particularly in understanding consumer psychology and creating a seamless customer experience.
• Balancing creativity and business is essential in both marketing and product management roles.
• Regrets can serve as valuable lessons, and it is important to take risks and pursue passions.
• Recommended books for marketers and product managers include 'Sprint' by Jake Knapp, 'The Book of Why' by Judea Pearl, and 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. Create an open and collaborative environment for team members to share their ideas and provide feedback.
• Having a supportive partner can greatly impact personal and professional growth.
• Don't be afraid to leave a comfortable job and pursue new opportunities for learning and growth.
• Apply the Sprint methodology to prototype and test ideas, starting small and gathering feedback from potential customers.

Sound Bites

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:49 Product and Marketing Landscape

03:09 Transition from Arts to Marketing

06:43 Balancing Creativity and Business

10:27 Regrets and Lessons Learned

16:04 Recommended Book: Sprint by Jake Knapp

20:25 Recommended Book: Good to Great by Jim Collins

22:02 Importance of Listening to All Voices

23:10 Collaboration and Open Communication

25:06 The Importance of Speaking Up

25:23 The Influence of a Supportive Partner

29:50 Taking the Leap and Leaving Comfort

33:31 Applying the Sprint Methodology

36:01 Starting Small and Gathering Feedback

42:47 Using AI and Machine Learning for Data Analysis

45:19 Personal Accomplishments and Sharing Knowledge

46:06 Connect with Kelsey Nintzel

Transcript: 

0:00

Everyone has their strengths and everyone has their own interests and I think that continues into adulthood.

So if what you're doing is not bringing new life or bringing new energy, like tune into what brings you joy and just go do that.

Kelsey, welcome to the show.

0:16

Hi.

Thank you so much for having me.

This is my very first podcast.

I'm so excited to be here.

It's so funny how we met.

Do you want to tell folks how we actually met?

Yeah, of course.

So I posted something mostly as a thank you on LinkedIn to a woman that I met very randomly through a common thread regarding chief membership and an accidental acceptance letter that turned into saying, you know what, We had a great conversation and I would love to keep having more with people that are interested in similar areas of product marketing, tech, AI, and machine learning.

0:56

And your post, when you reached out to me, we got connected and we had a wonderful conversation and that networking has spiraled way beyond what I imagined was just that.

Thank you to the one woman, and I'm just so glad to have met a really huge variety of interesting and very insightful people like you, Cream.

1:21

I mean, I think the post that you made was just, I think it just resonated with a lot of folks because.

There are a lot of people who are getting like unsolicited messages and like I I think you kind of spoke for a lot of us when you posted that.

And so yeah, I think I think that's why it kind of resonated.

1:37

And I think before we go any further, I want, I want you to help me out in terms of like setting the stage.

So for folks who haven't met you before, how would you, how would you introduce yourself?

Yeah, I would introduce myself my my work self as a product leader in tech.

1:56

I started out in marketing and advertising.

I'm very interested in consumer psychology.

And then as job opportunities came up, I started moving more into product and operations alongside that product strategy and product marketing type of work.

2:14

So I've been primarily in big tech consumer goods, and most recently I switched into Bounty dot AI, which is was a five person startup.

Now we're three times that size, which is still pretty darn small, but I'm head of product there and so that's a little bit about my work life.

2:36

I also have a mother of two boys toddlers.

Love it in terms of like the like cuz you I know that you've you've ventured a little bit like into or I think like.

In your background, you have a lot of marketing kind of weaved into there.

2:51

So how do you, how do you see things right now in terms of the product and marketing landscape and the overlap between them, if any?

There's a ton of overlap.

I think primarily my area where I love that there's an overlap is like I mentioned in consumer psychology, right, because as a marketer, you're trying to understand your consumers and communicate and message to them in a way that's going to make them interested in whatever product or thing you are trying to.

3:27

Yeah, market and it's very similar in product because the whole strategy should be how do you make this as easy as possible for the consumer to just build product love and understand how your product works.

And so there's that whole overlap in terms of psychology of of building loyalty, building interest, making it easy to understand and easy to gather value from.

3:56

And that's my favorite part about product.

And I think it's really important that regardless of whether you're in marketing or you're in product management, you are always trying to position yourself in the seat of your customer because whatever their needs are, their pains are, their aspirations are, that's what you need to be communicating and solving and building for.

4:22

Absolutely.

I mean I I think a controversial thought that comes to mind is like some people say if you build a product that's good enough, like people will come like just build it and they will come.

And the marketing crowd would say, Oh well, no, you need to like market it properly.

4:38

And marketing is going to is what's going to make people come.

But what's interesting is that right now at least like from what I'm learning personally with with the stuff we're doing with with the trough cast product and so on is that sometimes like you can obviously you can weave the two together such that when you do build a product people when you build it, they really will come because you've taken some of the marketing principles and kind of the the word of mouth principles and you found thoughtful ways of like.

5:10

Embedding that within the product, it's true.

It is, yeah, I think that they are are critically tied and of course there's going to be some ego and opinions of product is most important or marketing is most important, right.

5:26

And it does depend, I think, on the level of complexity in whatever platform or service you're offering.

Because with highly complex, you know, SAS tools, people already have a lot of tools in their toolkit and they're figuring it out as they go.

5:48

And you really do need to communicate a message that's going to say, stop what you're doing, look at how much of an easier solution we've built.

And you have to give them a compelling and easy and quick way to understand that in order to even get them to try the product, whether your product led and it's a free sign up and the people come and they try it out and they stay forever.

6:10

How do you even get them to come in the first place?

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, that's it is, it is so true.

And I think it kind of, I mean, yeah, we can go on and on.

Like, there's just so much to unpack here and the product marketing kind of like Chrome.

6:27

But this is key moments and we want to dive straight into the good stuff.

So you were like literally X Apple and then you went from like one of the most.

Kind of like well known big companies in the world.

I think, you know so many people have at least one Apple product in their house for better or worse.

6:44

And you you did like a total shift and even between kind of like even before like Apple and Bounty for the folks who are listening, who are creators, founders, marketers in general maybe take us like way, way back like kind of like childhood going into like your early career and how all that led to where you are today, Okay.

7:07

So I'll start with a little bit about the childhood like like you asked, I grew up with a very arts driven.

I was very arts driven as a child and that involves musical theater, singing, singing, in terms of voice performance, dance.

7:31

I'm sorry, is there is there a different kind of singing or there's opera, There's Broadway.

There's right, right.

A Capella.

I got you.

I.

Got you.

I know that's a topic for another day, but lots of theater, right?

7:47

And I also, my dad, being an athlete through college, really wanted me to try sports.

And I think it was just an important note that as I was on the soccer field, I was on the opposite one from all of the other players in the ball, like picking dandy Lions, so.

8:10

The point with that is, is like everyone has their strengths and everyone has their own interests and I think that you know continues into adulthood.

So if what you're doing is not bringing you life or bringing you energy, like tune into what brings you joy and just go do that.

8:28

So for me, it was just go to the arts and I stuck with that.

I almost went to college to study voice, but then I got worried about being able to pay for bills and and whatnot.

So I I studied business.

8:44

I went into marketing and at University of Maryland.

Then I went to New York City.

And and by the way, did you feel like?

Where you're like fine business and marketing it is or where you're like, no, this is, I'm digging this.

9:01

I think it was the right balance for me because with marketing and advertising, again, very creative, right.

There's a lot of visual design work, creative thinking, design thinking that goes into someone in marketing and studying marketing.

9:21

But I was, I was sad a little bit to let the singing and arts go.

But I think it's also just I I knew what my priorities were.

I wanted to be an independent woman who was able to make my own money, and I was worried about how that would look if I became a fulltime artist.

9:42

So it was, it was not that.

It was like, oh darn, I have to go study marketing now.

Not at all.

But it was like, how do I make these two points make money?

Also do something creative align together.

Yeah, and just building on that, Kelsey, like, you know what's crazy?

10:00

Like as I hear you talk about this, I'm literally thinking of like some of the highest paid.

You know what I mean?

Like creators in the world and they are literally doing that.

And these days, I know it's cliche at this stage, but like folks would grow up saying when I grow up, I like kids would grow up saying when I grow up, I want to be a podcaster, right?

10:18

Or like a YouTuber or.

You know, doing something with with my hobby and we need to almost like like we know to take them seriously because not only is this absolute, we live in a time where this is absolutely valid.

10:35

They are probably going to be more successful in many regards than if they were to follow like a typical kind of like 9 to 5.

You know what I mean?

Like career maybe as like you know our parents and stuff would have would have followed.

Wait until you hear my one failure story.

10:53

So.

Let's let's get into it.

Okay one failure.

I I would say one of the, and maybe more so a regret than a failure.

But when I had moved into New York City, I was working at an ad agency.

11:11

It was going well, but I remember I spent a lot of my free time reading blogs and posts coming from people that were doing things that I was interested in.

So cupcakes and Cashmere Smitten Kitchen, they're all like OG people that were posting about, you know, beautiful making awesome food or really great outfits and fashion.

11:38

And I wanted to go start writing about that and posting my own content about that.

And I remember speaking with my parents and saying, what do you think?

Should I try this?

And there was a lot of fear at that point in time, fear about putting photographs of yourself online, fear of saying something that would impact your personal brand as you pursue other careers down the line, and fear that, you know, just safety and privacy.

12:08

But I really do regret not having started that earlier on because look at us today, you know, 10-15 years later, everyone is doing that.

And the people that started early have the bigot.

You don't have a ton of content to go back on.

12:24

They've been building their brand for a lot longer.

Building a brand takes a lot of time and I think that that's something that I wish I hadn't let fear drive my decision not to start creating sooner.

Yeah, I mean, I know we're literally at opposite ends of the world.

12:42

You know, you're you're in the US, I'm in, I'm in Ireland and I'm originally from Egypt and I like, I don't know if you can see in the background, but like I I'm like, I want to be guitarist.

Like I've been playing guitar for like 1516 years maybe.

12:59

Yeah, yeah, around 1516 years.

I I get nervous when I say that because I'm supposed to be so much better for someone who's been playing for 1516 years.

But I think my level is stuck at like someone who's been playing for like 5 years.

I'm just like stuck there.

Either way, my goal perhaps not too dissimilar from yours, was to really study music.

13:17

I I looked up everything.

I was like, oh, Berkeley College of Music.

That's where that's where you want to go.

And with my parents and my parents aren't necessarily traditional anything.

They were just like, you know it was just like contemporary at the time.

It was like you don't, you don't necessarily go and study music.

13:34

Right.

In terms of and, I remember vividly my dad saying.

Hey, you're either going to be like a superstore or you're going to end up on the streets and you're probably going to.

It's probably going to be the latter.

So, like, is this really like the future that you want to, you know, go for yourself, keep it as a hobby.

13:51

And it's been a hobby for 16 years.

Still a hobby.

Do I wish?

But for what it's worth though, like I would say, and that's why I was asking you if you were happy to go into marketing, because I was happy I got into marketing even though I didn't learn like Jack in college.

I I still love it.

14:08

I still think it's a creative form.

I this is weird.

But like I relate marketing to the jazz music that I try to learn to play and whatnot.

I I see it as an art form.

Maybe some people are rolling their eyes at me right now if they're if they're walking, listening through this or watching this right now.

14:25

But I'm honest.

Fast tempo, short tempo, right?

Like it's all.

Yeah, and I mean not to get too deep on this, but but why not?

Like even.

You know what I mean?

Like.

I'm a bit weird.

Like I love I love jazz and like I I love jazz so much.

14:41

And one of the the key characteristics of jazz is that like sometimes you play quote UN quote wrong notes or wrong chords.

But the overall kind of vibe still sounds right because the rest of the musicians play accordingly.

And I relate that to like market conditions where it's like when a wrong note is played, obviously if you keep.

15:02

Following like the proverbial straight path, it's going to, you're going to, you know, fall off.

But if you find a creative way to kind of like, lean into that wrong north or that wrong condition, as it were, you make it not so bad.

Matter of fact, you make it maybe even more interesting.

15:18

Better than, yeah.

More dynamic, perhaps.

I totally get that.

I'm not rolling my eyes.

Thank you for not rolling your eyes.

Let it be known for anyone who's listening and not watching.

Kelsey is not rolling her eyes right now, which I'm grateful for.

15:34

Speaking of which, one book?

Yes, So my one book for both product as well as marketing is Sprint by Jake Knapp.

This is a book that I often go back to because it is very helpful that I'm showing this on the screen, but I'll voice over as well.

15:56

It goes, it reminds everybody to think about the big picture.

And again, this goes back to the consumer psychology that we talked about where it's like you have to map out the whole customer journey.

What is your customer or the group of customers that you're speaking to experiencing as part of their entire goal to get to, you know, whatever it is.

16:22

So, you know, creating really interesting content, right?

Map out and literally sketch what that looks like and then start sketching any and all ideas.

Wire framing, what it could look like.

This also relates to both marketing and product because whether you're wire framing and sketching out what a product could become or you're sketching out what, how would you present this information and what are the big messages that you want to get across?

16:51

What are this?

You know lesser supporting things that you want to communicate, then you need to prioritize.

Then you can prototype it right and launch.

And it doesn't have to be this long, long 1/4 type of goal.

17:08

The Sprint book really talks about how to break it down and test out some of your ideas and hypotheses in just a two week period.

Yeah, I mean it's a book that I see it just it has such a.

A wellknown cover.

17:23

Very popular cover and I haven't actually read the book and now that you bring it up Kelsey like I think I should because I love books and I've read a lot of like tangential things are but but not but not that specific one and I think it like would would you for folks who are listening like would you recommend this as a like OK fill in the blanks like if you're looking to do X Sprint is a great book to start with.

17:52

If you are looking into product marketing, I think it's very important to read it.

And I think that if you are struggling to experiment and I think it could apply to almost any a lot of different content forms, formats of marketing, I think that would be that would be something.

18:18

This would be 1 to read.

There's one other book by the way.

I haven't gotten to read this one, but I fought it because I really want to.

It's the book of why the new science of cause and effect.

So this was recommended actually by a machine learning engineer that I worked with.

18:36

And I imagine, I suspect that this has a ton also to do with understanding how people behave and why and really trying to, yeah, just position your product to help them in whatever actions they're trying to take next.

18:57

I love it.

Have it read.

Yeah, I'll take that one down as well.

I think I've heard of it briefly before, but if it comes highly recommended, then I'm sure it must be worth looking into at least.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of books that I've recently.

19:15

There's one book that I'm currently.

Going through which is called the good to great and this is a it's by Jim Collins.

It's it's it's not a new book it's been published for like since a couple of years at this stage.

But I'm I'm told that the concepts and it are timeless and I'm reading a lot of, there's a lot of like really eye opening things and that one of them, which I think surprised me really a lot is the the disadvantages of being a quote UN quote charismatic leader.

19:47

And how sometimes charisma can lead your team down the wrong path because you know, but you're so charismatic and we believe you and you're so convincing.

That's part of it.

And then the other part of it is, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to speak up against that.

20:02

I mean, I'm not, you know, charismatic or whatever.

I I can't possibly debate this in an open field across like, you know what I mean?

So this is something I I I I don't think of myself as charismatic, but I.

Want to just recognize that this is a thing like sometimes you could be a little bit more extra on on a scale, right.

20:24

Because I don't think this is a binary thing.

I think everyone is ambiverted to a certain degree.

And so you might be a bit more extroverted than others.

Or because you are the head of X or director of X, you you, you know, there's just like unspoken assumption that in in some companies that like, Oh well, they've spoken.

20:46

So I guess this is it, as opposed to fostering a culture where it's like, hey, no, I wanna help the team out and make sure that we don't go in a path that's not the most optimal.

Yeah, it's like the phrase that I hear all the time is don't exclusively listen to the loudest person in the room.

21:09

It is very similar to that, but I have experienced that as the quiet one in my work before and I think I've also experienced that as being the loudest one in the room and then having to really tease out well, what do you think you've been quiet and can you give us an example of either or?

21:32

Yeah.

Well, at at Apple, this is, this is probably really relatable for anyone at a, at a big company.

There's many more levels of hierarchy in the business, right.

And so you'll be discussing you know a strategy related to a product launch, right.

21:55

And the more the higher the leadership at the table.

You, you could all be sitting there physically together and you see you kind of just default to listening to.

All right, well, we're going to let the most senior person speak first.

22:14

And once the most senior person speaks, then it's kind of like, Oh well, if you disagree, are you going to go head to head in that moment?

And it requires a lot of confidence and to do that.

So I I think that that was something that I saw at at Apple without going into very specific examples and then at at Bounty what what would actually happen is my head of Engineering Matt Saravallo is is brilliant and very opinionated about product and and strategy.

22:53

And he and I would often just go back and forth like ping pong balls as we were discussing, you know, a presentation that I had put together about a new feature.

And what we found, and we talked about after this became a pattern, was we got to just have a private meeting, the two of us, to brainstorm these things, get aligned, and then make sure that we're opening up.

23:21

For the rest of the team to share their ideas so that we're not creating, we're creating that open space to listen to the rest of the group.

Yeah.

It kind of reminds me of like with Shopcast as well, like me and my cofounder brother Emin, we sometimes like one thing that we struggle with is getting the team to to push back on the things that we suggest as opposed to take just taking everything that we say at face value.

23:56

And so we're really trying to and I think we can still do a better job of this where it's like, hey, like just because we've suggested something doesn't mean you know what I mean?

Like this that it's gospel.

Like you need to figure you know we're trying to challenge folks to to find holes in what we're saying of which especially what I'm saying of which there's always plenty.

24:16

And so this is definitely something that that yeah that that we can get better at that then and they're always trying to get better at.

And this is not like, you know what I mean Like happy go lucky culture thing.

It's like no, like if you don't speak up like we might lose money, you know or we might not make as much money as we could have and it's because you had this awesome idea and you thought we wouldn't be interested in it.

24:39

Well, no of course.

Like we we want to we we we we want to foster that that that environment and that space for sure.

So definitely picking up what you're putting down there.

Yeah.

All right.

So shifting gears, I know we were talking about a couple of people.

24:54

And Speaking of people in general, who is one person?

Yeah, I really went back and forth on this part of your prompt.

Because of course there's like leaders that I follow and I am impressed by and I think are really impressive thought leaders.

25:12

But then I started thinking, OK, well, who actually has the most influence over my my destiny, right?

As a, as a as a leader, right, And as a working, working parent, right.

25:29

And I.

I ended up deciding to talk about my husband because it's true.

When you hear the biggest and most impactful decisions you can make in your life are where you live, what you do and who you marry.

25:45

So regardless of if you're married or not, most you know there is.

There is many people who pick to spend a lot of their life with one person and for me that's him and I I'm a believer in the thought process of.

Who you're with impacts you know what you talk about.

26:05

What you talk about feeds your thoughts.

Your thoughts feed your actions and how you react to your environment.

Your actions create habits.

Your habits create your destiny.

And this is something that I've also listened to a couple podcasts on.

26:22

I think it's a pretty well known belief system on how you can use your mind to control.

You know outcomes in your life and and who you become.

So my husband is someone who is very open to experimentation and he's a cheerleader and he's also a critic.

26:45

And I think having someone in your life who is able to cheer you on and really push you when you're feeling fearful about doing something is wonderful.

He was the one.

That helped me, yeah, on that.

27:01

What was one time when you were fearful of something and if it wasn't for him, you wouldn't have went through with it?

Okay, so this is funny.

It goes way back.

I'll tell you The example that comes to mind is.

27:18

All of my Business School job applications and then all of the interviews that went into those job applications, followed by all of the interviews to get jobs out of Business School.

Every time those moments occurred, it was really nerve wracking, right?

27:36

There's a lot of detail that goes into your submission.

There is a lot of practice and preparation that goes into every interview and.

I would always practice with him and he would critique how I was responding.

27:52

And at the right, before I either left the car to walk into the room, the interview or right before I'd push the submit button.

We got into this thing where we would say push the button, just go push the button.

So now, before anything happens that I have been fearful of, you know, even just before this podcast, it's my very first podcast.

28:14

And I was like, oh man, I'm kind of nervous.

And so he goes push the button, you know?

So is that why you were asking me?

Hey, where do I push record on my side?

Yeah yeah that was that was the button.

We can swap.

28:30

We can swap roles next time so that you are you are the host which means you can you can push record on your side.

I can.

I can be the one.

OK.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

But I I mean I think that's.

I love what you said about how like it's this kind of like mix of cheerleader and also critic is so special, isn't it?

28:50

It really is.

And if you can find that in someone and build A level of comfort and trust with expressing those those fears, then yeah, that's that's to me the best combination of a of a partner helping you get to who you want to become.

29:10

So I probably have an idea what your one decision is, believe it or not.

But I want to know what is?

What is the one decision?

Yeah.

I'm curious to know what your assumption was, but I think the one decision in my recent past was deciding to leave Apple and going to Bounty as their founding product person, product leader coming from this.

29:41

You know, one of the biggest companies in the world and deciding to give up all of the golden handcuffs that come with working at such a large company, right.

And just saying I'm just going to figure it out and create something from scratch and do a lot of learning and growth.

30:01

And that's worth more to me than the comfort of, you know, this big name brand and company which has been great, was a great experience.

But I was ready to move on from.

Yeah.

And for the record, this is exactly what I thought you would say, but okay.

30:21

But there's no way for me to prove that.

So you'll just have to trust me.

But there's a lot of folks in our community who are, in a way, they're actually my favorite kind of people because they have that stable kind of like fulltime corporate job, for what it's worth.

30:37

But they also have a side hustle.

And that side hustle is just about to start making money.

Or maybe it actually is maybe in the hundreds or the thousands.

But like, there's part of them in the back of their minds thinking, how do we, generally speaking, how do we remove the golden handcuffs and either do their own thing completely, like completely as a solarpreneur or like a founder or something like that?

31:06

Or maybe even join a smaller startup as a stepping stone to that?

Or maybe even not as not a stepping stone, per se.

Maybe that that's just where they want to go.

And them doing their own site thing gave them a taste of what it's like to have more responsibility and to be part of something where, you know what I mean?

31:24

Like you don't feel like A and then I'm not saying you said that, but you're not feeling like you're just a small part of like a much bigger machine.

Everyone that I, I know a number, I know 10 plus people just in the past three years who have done that exact transition.

31:41

And it's it's always the advice that I always hear is do both as long as you feel like you can manage it because what that allows you to do is keep the security and safety while you're building up that profitability and you're building up.

32:02

Confidence and experience.

Now, you can't always do that depending on your idea and the acceleration that you're seeing.

But I I also think that if when you're ready, just do the jump, you need to find that person who's going to be telling you like just push the button, right, Like you've been talking about this idea or the side hustle, you've been nurturing it for X amount of time and.

32:30

That encouragement, I think if you know in your heart that that is something that you want to go after and pursue and you've been trying it and you've been proving market interest and repeatability, right, That is an indicator that this can be something that you pursue full time.

32:48

And yeah, if you can, so I.

Financially.

Go for it.

Yeah, go for it.

Jump.

Yeah.

And I mean it's it's I think you're the perfect person to bring this up with just literally given your experience.

But for people who might be listening to this and saying okay, I know I need to follow my dreams and I know I just need to believe in myself and and all that.

33:11

I think you're because you were talking about the book Sprint and I think it'd be awesome if you can share with us how you would literally apply the the Sprint methodology of which one step is to create a prototype.

I think it would be super cool for you to yeah, to take you home.

33:28

I would love to do that, okay cuz I'm actually doing that right now.

Not even necessary, not with bouncing and I can give you a sample idea if you want.

No, I've got an idea.

Let me tell you, go for it.

So a personal interest in hobby has always been to use.

33:48

Fresh flowers, fresh florals, and then organized parties where people come.

They pay for all of the cost of goods, and together we have a party all around building out some handmade craft, right?

Whether it's floral arrangements, wreaths, pumpkins for your friends, stoop, etc, Right.

34:07

Sounds very basic, but it's also very Martha Stewart and I love it.

It brings me joy.

I have always wondered what would that look like.

To make more of a habit, I've had one party like this so far and it was really, really successful that you organized.

34:26

So that I organized it was in the fall.

It was for making succulent pumpkins.

I had spiked apple cider ready for Everyone music and we did a whole thing.

It was wonderful.

So I've been talking with my friends for, you know, a couple years now and saying, okay, what do you think?

34:45

Would you pay for this if it wasn't me organizing the event?

How much fun did you have from that?

This is market research, right?

It is quite literally anyone who is remotely interested.

Or in my friend circle I will ask them these questions.

That is part of the Sprint process.

35:02

From there I say okay.

Well, what would I want to make?

I'm sketching out what other activities or events could be hosted and that is just like the wireframing and sketch step of the Sprint book.

From there I say okay, I'm just gonna decide and commit to something.

35:21

So this Saturday I'm having my second event after several, I don't know, embarrassingly, several years since I had the first one and I'm going to try it out.

And this goes back to that whole thought process of I decided to take an action.

35:38

My actions of hosting another one of these events should potentially lead into a habit.

I can repeat the process.

Different event, different people, different craft.

See how it goes and then figure out how can I continue to prototype this right.

35:58

Like the event is essentially a prototype.

I'll do it again.

I'll do it again.

As I build interest.

I understand whether people would have been willing to pay more.

They're my friends, so I can ask them these things.

And I think that anyone who is doing a side hustle, like just talk to your customers openly if you're small enough.

36:19

Your customers that are using your product would probably love to give you feedback.

They probably love to talk to you and understand more about why you're doing what you're doing and how they can help you.

So I love.

Does that answer your question, Kareem?

Absolutely.

36:35

And I would I would add something through that and you can I'd love to know what you think of it which is sometimes and it's only because I had like a failed startup before which was like in the restaurant marketing space and I had a good support group of friends who thought it was great.

36:55

But really what they were trying to say is hey like we don't want to we don't want to upset you.

And so that my first kind of like you can probably see where I'm going with this but like my first kind of like I I think I just I needed I needed to have that like real world or kind of I don't know what the expressions but like that real life kind of like impact with the with the with the pavement of that if that's correct.

37:21

English in terms of like I need people who don't know me who borderline don't even like me.

Yeah.

And I want them to because then if because then if they like it then then we're on to something.

And I mean a less, a less illustrated version of that would be to potentially just create some type of an ad campaign or some like, yeah, create some type of like a promotion where it's like strangers like are you, is this something that you would do kind of thing.

37:53

And I think like the like how much you would pay for it as well as is a whole other thing.

I think there's a lot there's two schools of thought like there are people who are say, who would who would say, hey, how much would you pay for this.

And then there are other there's another school of thought where it's like, hey, this is the price and you kind of just like monitor the reaction and you have you adjust your price points to like the their actual willingness to pay.

38:15

But you always go first just to see.

Right.

Just to see if they say, oh, I thought it'd be more than that or I thought it'd be less than that and so on.

So I'm curious like with your because as you were talking about your idea like I literally wanted to grab my wife in here so that she can actually hear this because I think she.

38:34

Yeah.

Like she she would love.

Oh, just just because she would be.

I already know what she she would think like she would be all over something like that just because she's a big gardener herself.

So I think that would like your interest, but yeah, curious building on your Sprint methodology, if people are looking to, if people are scared to like get strangers involved, like what advice would you have for them?

38:56

I'd say start small.

If you're afraid or unsure of how to generate some random or unbiased interest in your offering, I would.

39:14

Full circle from what happened on LinkedIn here.

Post something where you say anyone who is interested literally public, not not filtered into your network, your personal connections, anyone online.

39:29

If you are interested in XYZ, send me a message and offer them something in order to, you know, respond with you.

And do a lot of hashtags right related to your topic and offering because that will also spread the the message for those those topics.

39:52

But we I saw you know I I got 30,000 impressions on on that one post that you know brought us together.

And I think that that would be a really great way to get a small batch of people that you don't do not yet know, but that have intent.

40:10

Right.

So they are looking to network, they are looking to communicate and talk about product strategy, marketing, a I ML, right.

And so I would take that approach of of start by simply posting on LinkedIn or if it's not a LinkedIn type of if it's not like a business tool then maybe it's Facebook, maybe it's Facebook marketplace, right.

40:33

You have something to sell and offer.

I'd leverage social media.

Yeah, I love that.

And like, please do let me know when you come to Ireland if you ever want to do like a popup thing here before you, like officially land and expand, if you're going to go ahead with it.

Because that's super cool.

40:49

And like, one idea I just, I just thought of is like, it would be cool if like, like you do exactly, exactly like where the genesis of that idea started, where you actually just start hosting parties and you invite people and you just tell them, hey, this is a way for you to, like meet new people.

41:05

And by the way, like if you wanted to do this.

With your own group of friends, like, this is a thing as well.

Like, we could totally set it up just for you.

Private with the people that you want to invite.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think, I think you might be on to something there.

That's a great social selling tactic.

41:22

I think it was.

I'm totally stealing.

You can you can totally steal it.

Cuz I I stole it as well from.

I forgot the name of the company, but it was the the company that creates like all these kind of like plastic Tupperware, I think Tupperware.

They they did something like that at the start, where it's like I think they would host Tupperware parties or something like that.

41:43

And that's kind of how they got the word of mouth going.

I digress.

So we're coming up to the end of the episode, as you can probably tell.

Like we can keep talking forever.

I did want to ask you though, what is 1 Accomplishment?

That meant something to you that maybe didn't mean like that much like other people outside, but for you it was just different.

42:06

Well there's tons of big high level things that are very personally important to me, but because I am very interested in a I and machine learning, I want to use this opportunity to talk about a learning and accomplishment.

42:22

Just earlier this week related to using chat, GB T, and a plugin with Notable.

So I was tasked with analyzing a data set of almost 20,000 entries of purchases and me being someone who is more creative, artistic, right like that side of the brain, not so in love with analytics, but I know what I value the, you know, learnings from it.

42:50

I went to YouTube and I said how can I leverage ChatGPT to analyze a giant data set and I came up with Notable has a plugin for ChatGPT.

I cannot tell you the number of hours that I saved analyzing this data set, which then allowed me to come up with really interesting and fun product strategy and business recommendations around, you know, all of the purchase history that was in that Excel file.

43:22

So I just wanted to say, I ended up going into ChatGPT and saying, hey, take a look at this data set and my assumption and hypothesis are that the higher the order number the higher the tip.

And my other assumptions are that when people are delivering orders across long distances that that has a lower revenue rate, etc, right.

43:45

Like I have these assumptions and I just shared them with AI and it spit out charts, graphs, visualizations and I was able to take that and then create a much more compelling story around why my product strategy would really be successful because I had those data points to support it.

44:11

So it's a little bit of a, I'm saying that as my accomplishment because it's not going to be a big longterm thing for me to have done that.

But I believe that perhaps the people listening to this podcast, maybe they don't know that that's possible and maybe that's something that would really accelerate their ability to bring new marketing concepts, bring new you know etcetera to the table.

44:38

So I just wanted to say that is a thing.

I did it.

If you have any questions, send me LinkedIn messages because I'm just so excited about this.

I mean, yeah, like thank you for for your generosity here and actually sharing something that all of us can can probably benefit from.

44:55

I'm totally going to check this out later on cuz yeah, obviously plugins and ChatGPT are now alive and there's a ton of them.

And so, yeah, I think, I think that's definitely one that could probably be, that could probably resonate with a lot of folks and just like their day-to-day in terms of like analyzing data and so on, yeah.

45:13

Love it.

All right.

Well.

We're coming up to the close of the episode.

I was wondering if there is anything else that you wanted to share with the audience or and or where people can find you to ask you questions about notable or just about your journey so far.

Yeah thank you.

45:31

Please find me on LinkedIn and send me messages anytime.

My name is Kelsey Ninsel and I'm currently at Bounty dot AI.

I I would love to hear from anyone that wants to talk about product strategy, customer psychology, career planning, marketing with regards to AI and ML as well.

45:58

Awesome.

Well, Kelsey, thank you so much for being on the show.

And yeah, we'll see you soon.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for inviting me.