UpTech Report
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Have you ever considered automating your SaaS and B2B email marketing campaigns? In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with the CEO of Userlist, Jane Portman, to discuss email marketing automation strategies going into 2022. At its core, Userlist is helping to automate the email marketing lifecycle with its new email automation tool. It makes starting email marketing campaigns and delivering custom email blasts that are personally tailored to SaaS businesses easier than ever before. It’s event-based email marketing, taken to the next level through data. Through data-driven analysis, Userlist’s email campaign tools and autoresponders are able to learn about your customers on a deep level. Then, they’ll take all of the necessary actions to onboard, engage, and nurture your marketing leads throughout the full customer lifecycle.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with the CEO of SecondKeys, Amber Hayes to discuss AI enhanced property management and predictive analytics for homeowners. SecondKeys is bringing artificial intelligence and automation into the property management space using machine learning to predict maintenance needs for properties ahead of time. However, that’s just the beginning of where this is all going in the future. What are the aspects of property management that can be automated and how can the information provided in a Maintenance Intelligence Report increase profitability for property managers? How exactly does Automatic Scheduling work? In this podcast, we’re learning all about property management systems and the role that artificial intelligence is going to play.
What parts of contract management can be automated and what role does data-driven decision making play? Where do blockchain and smart contract technology fit into all of this? In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with the co-founders of the AI-powered digital contract management platform, Revnue, to discuss contract automation tools and where this is all going. Sunny Sharma, CEO, and John Cortez, COO, explain how contract management has typically been a highly fragmented space with dozens of different interacting parties. “About $28 billion worth of trade was done last year in 2021, and if you look at trade, all that was done by contracts. On an average, organizations lose about 9% of their revenue due to inefficient contract management,” explains Sharma. However, Revnue’s contract management software aims to change that, allowing companies to automate and unify numerous business processes related to contract management. Plus, they take it to the next level with their contract analytics, advanced reporting, and other tools related to contract management.
The US healthcare system is broken in many ways, and functions great in others, but what are some approaches to actually solving the problems we are seeing currently in medicine? In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with James Lott, the CEO of Scripted to discuss how pharmacies can become point of care destinations. This could be a game-changer for both pharmacies and the patients that they serve. During Covid-19, we witnessed the staffing shortage in healthcare first hand and saw how it affected patients. However, by empowering pharmacists to utilize their medical training and do more, Scripted is helping to fix our broken healthcare system. Pharmacists can make a difference, helping people to get treatments faster and cheaper, when they need it most, right at their local neighborhood pharmacy. Waiting in long lines at the doctor’s office is no fun for anyone, but Scripted is helping individuals to skip the doctor’s office altogether and get treatment for common conditions at the pharmacy instead. They are empowering pharmacists to offer prescriptions and various treatments, and trying to get the insurance companies to pay.
Sports analytics and data science in sports are topics that are getting a lot of traction lately in the sports world. Every year, more and more teams are being united around intelligence, and in this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with the CEO of Kitman Labs https://www.kitmanlabs.com/, Stephen Smith, to learn why. Kitman Labs is a company focused on improving human performance in sports by analyzing athlete data. Their Intelligence Platform allows you to consolidate millions of data points about game stats, market value, scouting scores, training volumes, speed, strength, injuries, sleep, mental state, basically everything about an sports player. Even biometrics and blood markers are on the table. However, it’s not solely about the data either. At Kitman Labs, the real focus is on turning that data into intelligence and empowering the right people on the team to make the right decisions at the right times.
DemandJump is a marketing strategy platform that uses AI to determine the most important keywords for driving search engine traffic, and in this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with the CEO of DemandJump, Christopher Day to learn more. Based on Google keyword analysis and understanding search intent, DemandJump’s AI keyword research tool provides a game plan for content marketers who want to increase first page rankings. Artificial intelligence does the SEO keyword research, and in addition to providing the keywords, it also tells you the actual questions that people are asking related to the keywords. Once the new content goes live, you’ll get a full analysis of which pieces of content and campaigns are actually driving sales. Plus, DemandJump gives you regular consumer insight reports that tell you how customers are behaving and what other competitors are up to.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with the CEO of Improovy to discuss how he took his painting contracting company and turned it into a tech company. Along the way, he has become an expert in SEO strategy, so he will also be sharing some of his top tips for local SEO and search engine marketing. Kazimierski has a fascinating Founder’s Journey, and in many ways, Improovy now functions kind of like an Uber for the home improvement industry. Instead of spending hours figuring out who to hire, how to schedule the work, and coordinating everything, Improovy’s AI system handles the entire process. The consumer simply requests a quote for a painting job, and after agreeing to the terms, the painters show up at the house ready to work — it’s that easy! Improovy’s algorithms know which contractors are available, who has the specific expertise necessary for the job. Plus, all of the payments and logistics are handled on one simple platform that has an interface designed to improve the lives of both homeowners and contractors.
Why are artists creating NFTs and what are the various NFT use cases going to be in the future? In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson talks to art expert Monty Preston from Saatchi Art https://www.saatchiart.com/ to learn more about NFT, digital art, cryptocurrency, blockchain tech, and where this is all going. At its core, Saatchi Art is an online marketplace for independent artists to sell their artwork. It currently features over 1.4 million original artworks created by 94 thousand emerging artists from around the world, and 110+ countries are represented to date. But in the future, it’s likely that the focus is going to be more and more about digital art. The real questions are, what will NFT in the Metaverse actually look like and how soon are we heading towards mainstream adoption? Plus, what are the environmental impacts of NFT and cryptocurrency, and should we be worried?
In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with the SVP & CMO of Denodo https://www.denodo.com/en, Ravi Shankar, to discuss data virtualization and the future of big data. Through various use cases and examples, Shankar walks us through the exciting history of data analysis, what his company is currently up to, and where this is all going in the future. With Denodo’s data virtualization platform, companies can use modern data integration and management to sift through mountains of data to gain a unified view of the information faster, cheaper, and less effort. Under the surface, data analysis is quite complicated, but Shankar explains how his company aims to make it as simple as turning on a water faucet — you turn the knob and the water simply flows out the end of the pipe. Denodo’s powerful logical data integration and management enables data to flow from databases, data warehouses, and data lakes, on-premises or in the cloud, to applications used by business users, where ultimately, they use the most up-to-date data to analyze everything and deliver useful, business-accelerating results.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Mo Asady, the CTO of Convirza https://www.convirza.com/, to learn about how marketing teams are tracking and evaluating sales calls using AI. If you only have one or two sales calls to make, it’s easy to evaluate what happened after the call. However, if your team needs to examine the trends across hundreds of hours worth of conversations, artificial intelligence is likely a better solution. Through speech recognition, natural language processing, and ultimately, machine learning algorithms, Convirza’s tech is learning about how your team does business. Then, it’s analyzing the calls, providing actual scores about lead quality and a team’s phone skills. In the near future, this call tracking technology will even be able to help guide the sales conversation itself, giving the salesperson specific directions about which parts of the script to hit next. It’s not just about going down a sales checklist, it’s about understanding exactly what is going on in the conversation, in real-time, and then using this information to make data-driven marketing decisions.
What does the future of education and virtual learning look like? In this edition of the UpTech Report, Alexander Ferguson meets with the CEO of InSpace https://inspace.chat/, Narine Hall, to discuss how her company is helping educators to teach online with video conferencing software. InSpace’s virtual classrooms try to emulate what a real classroom would actually look and feel like, providing students and teachers with fun features such as freedom of movement. Plus, after the virtual lesson is over, students can break off into study groups to work, chat out in the hallway while waiting to speak with the teacher, or even attend a virtual tutoring session. In the future, we are all going to be learning in virtual classrooms and attending virtual events in the Metaverse. InSpace was created during the Covid-19 pandemic after educators realized the limitations associated with video conferencing platforms like Zoom. InSpace is a virtual learning platform, built by educators, for educators, and comes complete with all of the crucial teaching tools that teachers need to thrive.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, Alexander Ferguson meets with Gustavo Rodriguez to learn about online parenting classes, learning activities for kids, and educational games. Rodriguez is the CEO and creator behind BabySparks https://babysparks.com/ — a parenting app that helps parents plan and track meaningful play activities for kids between the ages of 0 and 3. It’s about encouraging a child’s growth and reaching new development milestones through fun family activities. Their smart adaptive technology learns and adapts to your child’s individual needs through machine learning and artificial intelligence. Then, it makes unique educational game and learning activity recommendations. Coupled with online classes and other parenting resources, new Moms and Dads now have an educational game plan that they can implement starting from day one. The lessons progress up through the first three years of life and are designed to set a baby up for a lifetime of success.
How can we make virtual meetings less soul-sucking and more productive? In this edition of the UpTech Report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with David Shim of Read to discuss his computer vision tech for analyzing engagement levels on Zoom meetings. When you’re looking at twenty different faces on a screen, it’s kind of hard to get a feel for what’s going on, but Read Dashboard provides metrics that allow you to actually scientifically quantify how a meeting is going. By using deep learning, Natural Language Processing, and other exciting new technologies, we can really start to see who is paying attention and who isn't. Read analyzes facial expressions, body language, speech patterns, voice tones, emotions, and more to provide real-time stats about how engaged people are in the conversation.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Katherine Wells, the CEO of Serenity Engage, to learn how the elderly care communication process can be streamlined to help combat Covid-19 and solve the staffing shortage in healthcare. Serenity is a HIPAA-Compliant Messaging Platform for senior care that helps to streamline communications between care staff and families. In the past, communication has involved three to five hours per week of time per patient, and a mix of phone calls, voicemails, emails, and disorganized sticky notes. Between medication schedules, health checkups, visits, and patient decisions, there is so much to keep track of. All of the time wasted on communication currently is eating into time that elderly care staff could be using in other areas. But thanks to Wells and her team, there’s now a much better way of doing things. In this episode, host Alexander Ferguson is hoping to find out more about senior living facilities, the caregiver staffing shortage, and how Serenity can assist.
Phygital is a new industry aiming to merge digital content with physical objects in the real world, and Anna Belova, the CEO from DEVAR https://devar.org/ is a leader in this category. In this week’s UpTech Report, Anna Belova enlightens host Alexander Ferguson about her company’s augmented reality educational tech and AR creation tools. She also discusses the Metaverse, the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality, and her company’s fascinating journey. With DEVAR’S MyWebAR platform http://go.mywebar.com/, your creative team can design and build new AR experiences in a fun, no-code environment. You no longer need to have expert knowledge, special AR glasses, or technical development skills in order to go phygital. It turns out, all you need is a little bit of creativity. You can easily create product showcases, augmented reality advertising content, virtual guides, and more.
In this edition of the UpTech report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with Rema Matevosyan, the CEO of Near Space Labs https://nearspacelabs.com/, to discuss her Earth imaging company. In a single day, Near Space Labs can deploy up to four Swifty balloons on a flight to the stratosphere where they capture images of Earth from an altitude of 60,000 to 85,000 feet. The Swifty is not just a weather balloon though. There is so much technology under the surface of this sophisticated stratospheric robot. In the insurance industry, its high-resolution imagery can be used to complete post-disaster claims and underwriting assessments. In addition, organizations can use stratospheric imagery to track the effects of climate change including sea level rise, forest fires, and so much more. It’s even possible to use the Swifty to monitor urban sprawl and plan ahead for development. There are several exciting use cases for a weather balloon flight to the stratosphere, and in this episode, we’re going to learn about all of them.
Software can make the lives of business owners much easier, but assuring that disparate pieces of software can communicate properly with one another is often a difficult challenge for B2B software companies. In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Michael Zuercher, the CEO of Prismatic https://prismatic.io/, to find out more about integration platforms and how they can help. We’ll learn about Zuercher’s history growing his embedded iPaaS company and how the market is currently evolving. Plus, what was the integration process like in the past for businesses that wanted to share and combine data between software? Should software companies use a cloud-based integration platform or iPaaS to provide product integrations versus letting in-house developers create their own integrations from scratch? And what are the best integration platforms available for customer-facing teams who want to create custom integrations? In this exciting episode, the host of the podcast Alexander Ferguson dives into it all. b1wWEAdUkQFa8fAd9Vc7
hat if companies could automate almost all of the hiring process AND make better hiring decisions? In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Omer Molad, the CEO of Vervoe https://vervoe.com/ to discuss automated recruitment, applicant tracking systems, and a brighter future for job seekers in the information economy. Forget about all of those boring, conversation-based interviews of the past. Through a carefully constructed series of skill-based questions and online tasks, Vervoe is bringing AI and machine learning into the human resources department, radically transforming the way that businesses find new talent. Host of UpTech, Alexander Ferguson learns that this is not just a simple resume screening process. Instead of hiring solely based upon someone’s background and the number of years they’ve spent working, Vervoe allows companies to find the candidate that is actually best able to perform the specific tasks that a job requires. They evaluate candidates based on hard skills, soft skills, and so much more.
In the face of climate change, how can businesses reduce their energy usage, save money, and transition to a more sustainable future? In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Mike Kirkup. He’s the CTO leading the way at EnPowered https://www.getenpowered.com/, a cCleantTech electricity platform that helps organizations decrease their energy costs and upgrade to new sustainable energy solutions. EnPowered is giving businesses the ability to make clean, smart energy choices that are actually good for the environment, without any significant upfront investment in new infrastructure. Their solution allows you to reduce energy costs while reinvesting in green technology at the same time. The host of UpTech, Alexander Ferguson, is curious to learn more about the Texas power outage last winter, renewable energy, and the best ways to plan for the future. Is it possible to solve the various problems surrounding the current power grid and reduce emissions?
Kintone is an all-in-one workplace platform with a fascinating history, and in this edition of the UpTech report, we get into all of it. Host Alexander Ferguson has the CEO of Kintone https://www.kintone.com/, Dave Landa, on the show to talk about the wide range of solutions that they offer and what they’ve been up to all these years. For starters, the platform empowers anyone within a company to build custom workflows and pick and choose the perfect apps for their department. Whether that’s a sales team that requires a CRM, marketers that require a calendar, or a human resources team that’s in need of an applicant tracking system, Kintone has you covered. Employees can select from dozens of different app templates, then customize them so that they work exactly how they want them to. Plus, it’s all integrated together in a unified system making collaboration between different departments a dream come true. With Kintone, you’ll constantly be pulling in new, important data from every corner of your organization, allowing you to analyze your processes, make data-driven decisions, and increase ROI around the board.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, we connect with Tom Symonds, to talk about building a VR training simulator on his platform — Immerse https://immerse.io/. It’s clear that virtual reality training is going to be one of the top ways employees are made job-ready in the future with companies such as Walmart already plowing full-steam ahead. If done correctly, VR training can actually be even more beneficial than traditional methods! However, it’s not just retail that can benefit. Symonds walks host Alexander Ferguson through his personal journey of launching a VR training company and explains how he has seen this field change dramatically over time. What started as an idea surrounding language learning has now expanded into equipment training in the oil & gas industry, aviation instruction, and even surgery, just to name a few exciting use cases. Instead of training in real-life dangerous environments, job seekers can now prepare themselves for their roles in a risk-free, virtual setting. The epic training experiences created on the Immerse Platform are fun, engaging, and most importantly, extremely effective.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with the CEO of Renovai https://www.renovai.com/, Alon Gilady, to discuss AI in retail and how AI is changing the way that we approach home decor and interior design. Gilady tells his story of how he first came up with the idea for an AI design tool, plus everything that followed after. Host Alexander Ferguson dives into all of it, learning about the wide array of fascinating functionality that Renovai’s AI interior design app provides to both businesses and customers. It’s all about their “Shop The Room” technology. The AI is essentially like hiring a virtual interior designer, giving you recommendations about exactly how you can organize and personalize your home decor to your liking. What items go together and where should they be placed in the room? Renovai decides based on your desired look and feel. Then you can visualize the room for yourself, navigate around it, and click on the items you actually want to buy.
Professional networking has always been a challenge, but since we’ve been spending so much time out of the office recently, it’s gotten even harder! It’s clear that we need new ways of connecting professionally with industry leaders and colleagues, but what is the solution? In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Sam Jacobs, CEO of Pavilion https://www.joinpavilion.com/ (formerly known as Revenue Collective) to talk about professional learning communities in the business world (PLCs) and business networking 101. Our host, Alexander Ferguson, digs into how Jacobs first got started down this fascinating path with the community Revenue Collective, where they actually barred CEOs and investors from joining at first! You’ll find out why. Plus, Jacobs explains some of his own knowledge that he has acquired along the way while growing his own business.
In today’s tech world, employees often have to juggle dozens of different apps at once just to get work done. Imagine searching for files on Google Drive, so that you can update a Task on Trello, and communicating about all of it over Slack or Zoom. Often, messages, files, notes tasks, and video calls all require different apps that are completely mismatched. Kenzo Fong knew we needed a better, more unified way of doing things so he launched his SaaS company Rock https://rock.so/. “Rock is a new hub for getting work done. Messaging, tasks, files, notes, and meetings. All in one space. All for free.” In this edition of the UpTech report, host Alexander Ferguson meets with Fong to talk about how Rock helps distributed teams to work more productively. He explains his full story from working at Google and Uber, leading globally distributed teams, and eventually, launching his own software company.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, Co-founder of HomeZada, Elizabeth Dodson, joins us to talk about her software company and its suite of home management apps. At its core, HomeZada https://www.homezada.com/ is a digital home management tool that will keep track of your estimated home value, equity, and expenses, as well as show you financial forecasts for the future. Got a DIY project to tackle? Plan and budget all of your home improvement projects with their home renovation project planner. Plus, you can verify that you are properly insured with their home inventory template, allowing you to keep track of everything you own and document it with pictures in an organized fashion. In this conversation, Dodson explains how she started her career working for a commercial construction project management software company. After she realized that there were no similar software solutions available for homeowners looking to manage a household, she decided to create HomeZada.
Is it possible to automate lending for equipment and automotive financing? In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with founder & CEO of Inovatec Systems https://www.inovatec.com/, Vladimir Kovacevic, to learn how his loan origination technology company is helping lenders simplify lending processes. To start, Kovacevic discusses his early days growing up in Serbia and how it set him on a unique entrepreneurial path. He talks about doing business in the United States and Canada, pursuing the American Dream, and starting his FinTech loan management software company — Inovatec. Inovatec is a loan origination and loan management software provider that helps organizations speed up the lending process and automate their lending business. With Inovatec’s software, lenders can automatically manage credit applications, lending decisions, documentation, onboarding, and reporting requirements all in one centralized hub. Through this technology, lenders can streamline their operations, lower expenses, maintain compliance, and book more deals.
In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Rebecca Clyde, Co-Founder & CEO of Botco.ai https://botco.ai/Botco to discuss how adding an AI chat bot to your site can help your company to increase revenue and win over new clients. Sometimes, AI conversations can feel just as authentic as real ones. Clyde talks about her journey growing her own tech company and some of the challenges that she has faced along the way. Plus, how was she able to differentiate her company from other AI chat tools on the market? One of the major selling points of Botco.ai is that it is HIPAA Compliant, so healthcare organizations and doctors’ offices can use their chatbot as well. If visitors to a healthcare site have questions about the organization’s services, they can get them answered immediately with Botco.ai’s artificial intelligence web chat. Then, when the patient is ready, the AI will direct them to the proper appointment scheduling system.
Which communication messages are trending within your organization and who’s clicking on what? In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with Tarek Kamil, CEO of Cerkl https://cerkl.com/, to learn how managers can make smarter, data-driven decisions with Cerkl’s internal communication suite, Cerkl Broadcast. With Broadcast, you can create beautiful emails and content for your targeted employee audiences. Kamil explains how not everyone responds to the same type of message in the same way. Why not vary it based on language, their preferred form of delivery, interests, and other attributes? Broadcast helps internal communications teams modernize their digital employee experience by delivering the content your employees want, on the channel of their choice.
What if you could automate almost all of your social media and content marketing? Would that make your life as a business owner and content creator simpler? In this edition of the UpTech Report, we meet with KD Deshpande, the CEO of Simplified https://simplified.co/ to discuss how his company is helping marketing teams to design and collaborate more effectively by using AI technology. Simplified offers “all the content-creation tools you'll ever need, in one app”. Instead of logging onto all of the various different social platforms and content creation resources on your own, your team can collaborate and create posts for all of these services, all at once. The technology can generate blogs, videos, graphics, and more. Are you launching a new product line? You’re in luck. With Simplified, you can pull pictures from a royalty-free service such as Pixabay, write the advertising copy using an AI copywriting generator, and then instantly post to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and more, all with the click of a button.
In this edition of the UpTech report, we meet with Brian Sierakowski, CEO of Baremetrics https://baremetrics.com/, to pick his brain on everything he knows about growth. His entrepreneurship story began when he had a novel idea for a shared password manager a little over a decade ago, and shortly after, his first company Team Password was born. From startup to exit, he helped the company to expand at an incredible rate until they were ultimately acquired. His experience makes him an expert in growing a SaaS business and the startup acquisition process. These days, though, he is leading the charge in a new industry — SaaS subscription analytics. As CEO of Baremetrics for around a year now, Sierakowski is helping to change the way that Software as a Service companies analyze their data to increase profits. When you simply offer one subscription plan, tracking metrics is easy. However, what if you have dozens or even hundreds of different subscription products with various add-ons? Baremetrics will help you to track and analyze your subscription data and key performance indicators (KPI metrics), providing you with deeper insights into your business and what to do in order to increase sales.
