[00:00:28] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Mike Gadsby. He is the founder or co-founder and CIO of O3 Worlds.

Mike, how are you, buddy?

[00:00:38] Michael: Doing well. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:40] Jay: Let's see. We met at the Flyers game, as they made their final push to the playoffs and then just sputtered out in the second round. But it was fun,

[00:00:47] Michael: Yeah, but the first round was good.

[00:00:48] Jay: It was, it was incredible. It was

great. It was a great run. Even the end of the season,

[00:00:52] Michael: I'm telling you though, you know what? People, I think people got too greedy. You know? Like weren't you just psyched that they beat the Penguins in seven games and like Sidney Crosby went away, like, 

[00:01:02] Jay: Crying? Yeah

[00:01:03] Michael: all that? Like that's, that was fine.

Like I was good with that. That's a successful season, and they're on the right trajectory.

[00:01:09] Jay: There's a Philly sports fan if you ever heard one. All right, Mike, where did you grow up, and did that have an impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:01:16] Michael: A little bit. Yeah. So I'm kind of from all over a little bit. I mean, I'm definitely-- I was originally from Colorado, but moved here when I was, here being Philly when I was 10. And I grew up in, the Philadelphia suburbs, and then I went to college in Philadelphia. I went to Penn. And aside from a short maybe one-year stint up in New York, I've kinda never left.

So I would say that, you know, my formative years were definitely built around, being creative and always trying things and, you know, being curious, and I think one thing led to another. I don't know that I ever really set out to start a business per se. But here we are and, you know, one thing led to another and, you know, started a, started business young and just kinda kept at it, you know?

[00:01:56] Jay: So is O3 World that same business? Is this the one you've,

[00:01:59] Michael: I so,

[00:02:00] Jay: and only? 

[00:02:01] Michael: So I started my first business a couple years before O3.

 Basically, so let's like, let's go back in time a little bit, right? 

Like, you remember when the internet started and everyone thought it was like... It was kinda like AI now, which I'll get into a little bit, but 

like, it's like newfangled thing called the internet.

Where I graduated college in 2000, and it was sort of right on the cusp of the internet becoming like this big and awesome thing. Although I was talking to somebody recently and they were like, "Well, that's right when the internet was invented." I'm like, "Like,

settle down." Like late '90s we had the internet for what it's worth.

So anyways, so, I, you know, I got into sort of web design and the kinda concept of, you know, digital sort of late college and then you know, right as I got out of college, I took a job, up in New York and I was working at a branding agency and it was awesome. But the best thing that came out of that is they paid for me to go learn how to like everything about the internet and you know, one thing led to another there and, I ended up moving back to Philly a little bit before 9/11.

And then like jobs became obviously a bit scarce right after that. But I started freelancing all over the place, 'cause like, you know, I was kind of in demand,

 various agencies, kinda all up the East Coast and, figured out that it was way better to refer to me as we and call myself a business instead of a freelancer, and all of a sudden people start paying you a few more bucks and so there you go.

Ended up, you know, hiring a couple people and that was cool. But then I met my business partner through a mutual project,Keith Scandone and I, you know, ended up teaming up right around again, 2005. We saw a really great opportunity. We had a third business partner at the time and yeah, and then things have just been kinda taking off ever since, so.

[00:03:36] Jay: What do you, what are your thoughts on, like, when to get a co-founder and when to not?

[00:03:45] Michael: It's funny, I actually do quite a bit of mentorship for like startups and, you know, especially like, you know, kids coming out of college who have these like entrepreneurial kind of concepts, and you get asked those questions. And I don't know that I ever thought about it that hard. I will say it's definitely easier going through this as a team, I mean, 'cause yourself, you don't know everything.

And you need a little bit of a, a yin and yang in a situation. You'll certainly have folks that are gonna be more operationally sound. You'll certainly have more folks that are gonna be, you know, a little more tied to the dollars. You'll have folks who are tied more to the product and the outcome of that.

And I think that balance is something that has kept Keith and I going, for a long time because I just think that's, you know, you're in it to win it, and you have somebody that, you know, can kinda keep you grounded as you can keep them grounded, and I think that balance is really what makes it work.

So as much as I've, you know, I've always been, you know, been envious of business owners who have been able to like roll with it on their own, I think the reality is that most people need help, and most people need somebody to kinda help them kinda get through the hard challenges and then really see the big opportunities.

[00:04:48] Jay: And which one of those are you? Which side? Are you more operationally focused? Are you more ideas guy, products? Like, what, which would

you- 

[00:04:55] Michael: I've always been sort of on the ideas side. It's always been the role I play. My role now is chief innovation officer, not that, you know, Keith has great ideas as well. But I definitely, 

[00:05:04] Jay: are better and that's why you got the title. I know,

it's,

fine. I know, Keith. That's what I'm gonna-- I,

I'll tell them that's your face. Look, I got the better idea, guys, right here.

[00:05:10] Michael: Apparently that's, you know, you said it, I didn't say it. But he, no, Keith's great and I definitely think it's more, you know, Keith has always been on the account relationship and you know, business development side of the house and you know, I've been a little closer to the work. So that's just kind of been the role I've played over the years. But it's been great and, you know, I mean, we definitely have always had a good relationship in, as far as bouncing ideas off each other and really able to sort of, you know, push into the next thing.

And one thing I will give Keith a ton of credit for, he's really great about saying, you know, "F it, let's go for it." You know what I mean? And, you know, that's been a real, you know... it's been great for me because like, you know, I think sometimes I'm definitely can be a little more cautious in certain situations.

And it has really helped us, you know, get to where we're at, you know, really opening up doors and taking that next big step.

[00:05:58] Jay: Yeah, that's a great answer. I love that. All right, well, who was your first customer to O3 World?

[00:06:03] Michael: Oh, that's a great question. Philadelphia Style Magazine.

[00:06:06] Jay: Oh, there you go. Are

[00:06:07] Michael: way

back in the day.

[00:06:09] Jay: Is it 

[00:06:09] Michael: I, 

you know, it's funny you ask. I'm actually not entirely sure.

[00:06:13] Jay: not sure 

[00:06:14] Michael: I think so. You know, it's hard to-- publishing these days is tough. So, you know, I mean, what content looks like and who owns what and whatnot, I haven't really followed up on it all that much these days.

But yeah, they were our first client. We did quite a bit of work in that. That era was all about how do we get words on screens.

[00:06:28] Jay: Mm-hmm

[00:06:29] Michael: So yeah, we had quite a few folks in that space.

[00:06:31] Jay: How did you guys land them as your first client? Like, what was the kind of spin up? You guys said, "We're gonna do this thing together. We're gonna go out and do..." Like, h-

[00:06:38] Michael: Like 

every other good first client we had, relationships. Keith had a relationship with the owner there and, you know, we really, you know, bent over backwards to make that work. You know, and at the time we were doing things, technically, that were a little ahead of the game, right?

this is like, you know, 2005. This is before like, you know, WordPress really blew up and CMS was a thing and whatnot, right? And so actually building technology to help kind of support the public space was great. And we really did, I think, a, a really nice job of putting ourselves in the middle of those conversations.

This is before, like you had standard content management platforms,

that sort of thing, and, you know, something specific and unique to a business was a thing. So yeah.

[00:07:21] Jay: Who-- This is a tricky question, and I'll let you, I'll let you take this one the way that I know you would like to take this one, which is who is your customer today, Mr. O3XO? Talk to me a little bit about the AI side of things. I don't want you to talk about AI in general terms or whatever.

We all know we just wanna throw up all over the place. But very specifically, what I'm very interested in is the way that you guys... I'm not gonna use the word pivot. I don't like that word either. But like the way you guys have kind of listened to the market created an offering around it, and then, like, how you guys have executed and how you continue to iterate on that in, like, such a weird tumultuous space.

And talk about it in, like, real, like, what you're actually doing for these companies.

[00:08:05] Michael: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So why don't we kind of take a step back? I think one of the things we've always done well is evolve. And we've evolved with customer needs. We've sort of been ahead of the curve, whether that was like, you know, 2007-ish when, you know, mobile became a thing and we were getting out in front of that or, you know, when 2010s hit and all of a sudden, you know, every startup under the sun was building a SaaS solution and, you know, we got in the middle of that.

We've worked at an enterprise level. We worked with, you know, new ventures, all sorts of things.And I would say the one thing that's always kept us going is that we've always been able to change and to sort of absorb change. AI is just that next change. Now it's groundbreaking. it's, you know, I would say the most transformative change in technology.

I mean, people say since cloud. I'd say probably since mobile, but I'd say it's bigger than that.And again, going back to what I said about the internet, right? Like, the reason I was so excited about being on the internet was because it was a new frontier. It was like, you know, I mean, there were a handful of folks really taking advantage of it, but like you had all the naysayers out there saying like, "Oh, this isn't gonna be a thing."

Well, I can tell you AI feels a lot like that now, right? We've always been around sort of innovation groups, and I'd say at least for the last 10 years, we've worked with entrepreneurial programs, venture studios, all sorts of, you know, different types of companies in that regard. What happened over the last few years, though, most of those organizations', innovation groups have sort of gotten swallowed up under an AI initiative, right?

The CEO says, "We need to get AI in our organization," and then all of a sudden all the innovation dollars are kind of going in that direction. There's a whole other spinoff part of this conversation about what happens to all the innovation. We'll get to that later. But like,

but we would-- we've just really stuck with that and we really looked for areas of opportunity to really serve our clients.

And so the difference here, though, was we really saw that like the needs around AI and the folks we were talking to and the work we were doing really deserved its own space and its own area to really be cultivated quite a bit, right? So we spun off, O3XO, which is our AI practice. I run that.

We still have our core services that we're developing as well that are AI-centric and AI-enabled, but we really wanted this idea of how do we go into a company and help them build out their AI capabilities, kind of from, you know, top to bottom. And we work with everyone from mid-market organizations all the way up to, you know, big enterprise companies in that regard.

The coolest thing though, I gotta be honest, it's just like- Man, it's been cooler to see what's possible than I think I, you know, since, you know, it's almost the start of my career. This has been energizing to a large degree and we just want people to feel that same kind of energy, you know, really get all the things you were just talking about, all that fear, all the anxiety, all the, "Oh my God, what's gonna happen to my job?"

Like I, I really want people to more dip into, "Wow, look at what I can do now. Look at what I can produce." Regardless of your job, regardless of the, you know, career path you might be on, AI is a huge enabler.

[00:11:04] Jay: Let's talk about... Okay. Let's talk like brass tacks when it comes to what it means to implement a company's AI capabilities. Because we both know and everybody knows that means $100 or $10 billion depending on like which-- like where you're talking. So how do you guys slice it in any sort of way that's like just filters it down so you're not trying to boil the ocean because everybody's trying to build AI capabilities right now?

How are you like identifying ones that are good fits for you guys specifically with what you're trying to do, where you're at, where the team needs to be, et cetera? Like who is that and like how are you guys defining and like continuing to iterate on that persona?

[00:11:56] Michael: Well, that's a great question, Jay. 

[00:11:57] Jay: Thank you. 

I'm good at asking questions.

[00:11:58] Michael: It's an awesome question. Yeah.

It's funny 'cause it hits on, our exact philosophy, which is, you know, start small and scale, right? Like I feel like especially with AI, there's this idea that like you need to turn over an organization from top to bottom, like right away.

And frankly, anybody who's been in change management or understands, you know, what, you know, it looked like to go through like big digital transformation projects will tell you, like that's just not possible. Like there's too much to try to take on at any one particular point. And then on top of that, like everybody needs to get on board within an organization.

So like you need to not just like introduce technology, you need to introduce it in a way where you create proper paths to adoption. The other side of this is, you know, you definitely need top-down like motivation, right? You need leadership to be on board and pushing innovation, and that is absolutely necessary in order to create, you know, I think good momentum within a company.

However, the actual work starts with every department. It starts with department leaders and the people doing the work. It starts with exploring, use case opportunities and seeing what's gonna stick and seeing how, okay, well, I go through this work every day, where can I remove these friction points? So practically speaking, the big work we do is going in with companies, working with them to identify sort of key friction points among various parts of the department, making sure that their AI plan aligns with the business objectives, right?

Just because you can apply AI doesn't mean that you should in certain areas, right? You wanna make sure that if this business has a growth plan or a new product plan or whatever, that they're getting the most out of this. So we look for those opportunities, whether they're customer-facing or more internal administrative employee-facing, right?

Those real areas of friction that like are causing the company to slow down, that are causing employees to be doing more, way more tactical work than they need to when they could be doing more valuable work to be, you know, driving the bottom line. And within those we create,essentially prioritization, methodologies where it's like, all right, here are the, you know, best use cases based on the key friction points we're identifying in each one of the department.

By having folks play a role in that, which they should, then they're able to say, "Oh, wow, if I could fix this problem, like my job will be a lot easier," right? And then we really kinda determine, all right, what's the amount of time saved and what's the amount of capacity that we are gonna be able to open up, right?

And that not just saves time, but allows them to say, "All right, with this additional time, here's how I'm gonna push the business forward." I will say this, it's funny 'cause I think people are like, "Well, you know, if you're gonna save, you know, 40 hours a week, then what are you gonna do with all that additional time?"

It trust me when I tell you that like nobody's slowing down.

[00:14:45] Jay: Right.

[00:14:46] Michael: There is-- I've not seen one company that we have worked with where all of a sudden people are like, "Wow, I got all this additional time." All that is happening is they're doing more work. They're able to push more through the pipe, right?

And I think that's gonna be an interesting thing to follow over the next few years is like, what is that really gonna look like for like bottom line revenue, et cetera. But that's really what happens.

[00:15:09] Jay: Yeah. No, I feel like consulting is about... It is, and not, that it hasn't, but it's about to have its ultimate heyday. Like, people are so scared and have no strategy. It feels like you can essentially, not gonna say copy-paste, but the model is assess, report, execute, right? Across all these functions, across all these different things, and like if you have the experience and you can go after that one vertical and you can assess, report, and execute, that's what people want right now.

They're fucking confused. They don't know what's go- They're just like, "Help us do whatever." So I love this model for you guys. How far ahead can you guys plan what you wanna do? Like, are you just kind of like reacting? I mean, not, obviously not just react to the market, but like how forward can you plan for any of this stuff, like what you wanna be doing, what your service offering's gonna be?

Like, the thing being so dynamic, how do you stay nimble while also not just consistently, like constantly changing what you're offering? Because that's, you know, you gotta productize it at some point because it's gotta be standard and you gotta roll it out to as many clients as you can, right?

So how do you do stuff that's not custom all the time?

[00:16:11] Michael: Also a terrific question. You nailed that one. That was good.

Uh, yeah, I love that question. Because it is something that, like I would say about a year ago when, you know, we were sitting there, I was like, "Man, well, this stuff is changing so fast. Like, how do we create, you know, proper structure around this?"

I will say all of a sudden AI has become, even though it's the nature of generative AI is that it's non-deterministic. The outcomes are, in certain cases, unexpected. However, it has become a lot more standardized in the approach with which, you know, companies, organizations like ourselves are building around it so that it's getting a bit more predictable.

[00:16:52] Jay: Right.

[00:16:52] Michael: Saying all that to say that we are now in a situation where there is standard practice starting to get bubbled up. There is a lot of same with like software development life cycles sort of approaches to projects where I feel like, you know, we are having a lot more of a replicable process so that, you know, we can sort of standardize approach, et cetera.

So that's sort of the baseline. However, the other thing that's super cool now is, which I love, it is cheaper and easier to build digital solutions than it's ever been, right? I mean, they talk about this as far as the SaaSpocalypse and all that, and I don't want to get into that. But like the idea that, you know, I can go build custom software whenever I want because I can go vibe code a solution.

Now there's all sorts of concerns with that, and I, you know, I don't mean to like, you know, shy away from that. But the idea that like anybody in an organization can go build out their own custom workflow solutions using, you know, a vibe coded solution, a Claude code or Lovable or something like that is super interesting.

So this is all to say that, a lot of the ways in which we're approaching the work is a lot more product centric, right? We're thinking about things from a standpoint of how can we build you know, certain custom solutions within the framework of something that we do kind of over and over again, where you're accelerating then not just the solution, but the path with which we get to that solution because you have sort of a standard,

I won't call it a product because it is so custom to each client, but it gives basically a starting base to get going with.

[00:18:23] Jay: Yeah. No, I love that. What do you do for personal branding stuff? Like you're the work... you're closer to the work guy. Keith is Mr. Dinner and Handshakes. What

[00:18:35] Michael: I don't know that I, I don't know that I would, I would, I would give it to that 

[00:18:38] Jay: feel like that's the only time I've seen him is giving him dinner and handshakes, that's it. Or like a conference, I think.

No, but I mean, as, you know, the tech excited guy, but not saying that Keith isn't. Again, I- I've had Keith on the show, so I can say whatever the fuck I want 'cause he's been here. So it's not, it's like I have a friend. He's...

[00:18:54] Michael: You're gonna ha- you're the one that's gonna have to explain all this to him. I'll just let him 

[00:18:58] Jay: Man. He can watch it and he can watch the other one back and remember it all. No, but how do you get out? Like what is your job, like in your head, of, to get out there to like have any sort of... I mean, I hate the thought. Again, it's just all these terms, thought leadership and all the, just all this garbage they've been beaten to death. But now you have something that you're clearly excited about that maybe you haven't had before to this level and to this level of fervor.

How are you gonna attack it? Do you plan on it? Do you care? Is it something you think about? Is it important for the business? Is it the same as what you wanna do outside of the business? Like how do you deal with, you know, who Mike is online?

[00:19:34] Michael: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I mean, I follow a lot of the same playbook as a lot of other folks, right? Like I'm definitely like I do as many of these as possible. I try to get in front of as many people as possible.

I'm on LinkedIn as much as I can be, although I will say, you know, I am very impressed with how much content other people produce over LinkedIn.

And this is coming from an AI person who uses AI sort of pretty religiously all, you know, over and over again. The challenge I have is, you know, I am very cognizant of AI slop. I am very cognizant of, you know, making sure my message is my message and not, you know, something I'm just producing on the fly.

So there's something to be said for that. But for the most part, I think that's big. I think, you know, trying to get in, you know, I try to get as many sort of speaking engagements as is feasible over the course of the year. I try to do, you know, a handful here and there. But I think the big thing that I try to do more than anything is, a little more of what I, I kinda call micro-communities, where, you know, I'm trying to get in front of, you know, five or six or seven people, dinners and regular Zoom meetings and that kind of thing.

It does two things. One is it's not just like a me talking at people scenario. It's more of a conversation. And then the second part of it is I learn as well, which is so important. In this environment we're in right now, you know, you can try to stay on top of all of the information.

It's virtually impossible. Like I, I am very impressed with people who are able to absorb the content, in any sort of, you know, quick and meaningful way, and the only way that it's really worked for me is to have really solid conversations with folks on a regular basis. Because at the end of the day, it's all the stuff you're seeing online is great, but like, you know, I need practical knowledge.

I need to know, like, how are people doing this stuff? Like what are they running into? What are the problems, you know? So I think that's important. I'd say the other thing, just we as an organization, I mean, we have our own conference every year. It's called 1682. It's October 7th, get a plug at the Barnes Foundation in Philly.

And this is now, I think our, I mean, fourth big conference, but like fifth or sixth, like we had a couple like smaller versions of it. The whole point of it is it's around this. It's around bringing thought leaders together and actually having conversations. And yes, we have people on stage and talking, but they're just as much of the audience as they are sort of talking about what they're doing.

I mean, that's a large scale version of what I'm talking about, but like that's the only way I think that we can legitimately learn in a space and really feel what other people are doing on a regular basis, because otherwise it's just too hard to keep up with.

[00:22:05] Jay: Yep. I love it. All right. Mike, I have one more question. This is Mike being Mike. It's not business related. It's not AI related, I hope. If you could do anything on Earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:22:19] Michael: If I could do anything on Earth and I knew I wouldn't fail. I'll 

[00:22:23] Jay: Yeah, you're doing the thing where you say the question out loud to give yourself longer 'cause it's a hard question. I get it. It's fine. Take your time. It's fine. I get, I

[00:22:29] Michael: No, 

I, I know the answer. This 

[00:22:31] Jay: right, let's hear it. What 

[00:22:32] Michael: It's not like a tricky answer. I think, nah, being a parent. You know, I mean, my whole purpose in life is my family. I mean, I love the work I do, and I love everything that I've gotten to be able to do and all the awesome opportunities I've had, but the reality is like, you know, that's why I get up in the morning.

So, you know what? If I could not fail as a parent, that would be sweet. 

[00:22:51] Jay: That's a great answer. I've gotten that a

couple 

times, and I, as a real dad who, like, cares about his kids, I

appreciate that answer very much. Like, there's a... Like, you, it's... It would suck ass to put in all the work that we do and be bad parents. 

[00:23:05] Michael: Well, I mean, you know what? I'm the first to admit,

[00:23:07] Jay: dude. It wouldn't

[00:23:08] Michael: we both know though, we've been bad parents at 

[00:23:10] Jay: Oh, we've been... Here's the, we'll just say this: we could've been better. That's it. We'll put it that way. That'll make us s- not

seem quite as bad. 

[00:23:16] Michael: I say, I tell everyone, as long as you put the effort in, as long as you try, that's the 

[00:23:21] Jay: You gotta be there. Just be there, you know? Just be there and put the Band-Aids on and listen to the dumb stories and give the hugs when they need it. So anyway, Mike, you were awesome, dude. If people wanna find out more about what you talked about today and talk, reach out to you directly, how do they do that?

[00:23:35] Michael: Yeah, sure. So our website is o3xo.ai for our AI practice. That is definitely where you can find me, find our contact information, et cetera. And then, as far as the conference is concerned, it's 1682conference .com.

[00:23:47] Jay: We'll loop that thing.

We're gonna plug that thing, buddy. Don't you worry.

[00:23:50] Michael: Definitely go check that out. I think that'll be, I think it'll be a lot of fun for people to check out, particularly if you're in the Philadelphia U- area or the Northeast region.

I mean, we have a lot of people coming in from, kinda all over, to be honest. And we'll have speakers from kinda all over the country, so it'll be, should be a lot of fun.

[00:24:04] Jay: No, I love it. All right, dude. Mike, you're awesome. Be good, buddy. We'll catch up again soon, all right? Thanks, Mike.

[00:24:09] Michael: Great. Appreciate it. Bye.

[00:24:10] Jay: ​