Transcript
Speaker: Hi, Carla. Hi, Meredith. Good to meet you. I'm so excited to get to do this conversation with you. I think your work is really interesting and I appreciate you taking the time to do this with us. Thank you so much.
Speaker: So excited to have this conversation. For the folks who don't know who you are, can you start off by just saying who you are and what you do? So my name is Carla Kongson. I am the CEO and co-founder of a company called Agentive. And Agentive is essentially a ai platform where we have designed agents or in our lexicon, digital workers that have been co-designed with real people and who can augment existing teams to help them with tasks and skills and expertise.
Speaker: I really want to dig into the work that you're doing now. And I think we can spend some serious time on it in this conversation. But before we get into that, can you give your career journey up to founding Agentive? What was the work you were doing until then?
Speaker: So it is a circuitous path of discovery and evolution and reinvention. My background actually comes from 20 years of marketing as a C-suite. So I first started out in the advertising industry, moved on and then became a client. So I've been a chief marketing officer in two organizations, one global organization called Invesco, which is in financial services. And then later in my career, was the Chief Marketing Officer of Dundee Corporation, which is a local wealth management group. And in between there and a couple of kids, I ran all of the ad agencies that supported Ford of Canada, the car company.
Speaker: And basically a big career of herding cats and herding people in the creative and marketing industry was Loved it, loved the creativity, loved the systems, and loved the people. And in 2016, I made a pretty bold move and decided to walk away from the corporate office and start my own consultancy. I had always thought about being an entrepreneur, and it was time to take the leap and start that up. So I created a boutique consultancy.
Speaker: And the idea there was not to make it in the traditional world, which meant offices and space and buildings and salaries. We actually created what I call a distributed format, which is we had 200 freelancers. So these were all consultants who had all succeeded in whatever they were doing as a creative director, an HR person, et cetera. And we helped assemble them into teams and then work with clients. I used to joke that we were the Ocean's Eleven of consultants where our stock and trade was to be able to find the right talent, the right expertise to solve our clients' hardest problems. And that continued to do very well. So we grew it to a multimillion dollar annual revenue business. And then in 2023, this crazy little chatbot kind of came into the public domain called ChatGPT. And I saw the potential of that, but also the impact of it in services-based businesses. So i went very deep into prompt engineering and wanted to understand how that worked. And then I combined the power of people that I was working with, the consultants and the freelancers that we... employed and we put together in projects with prompt engineering and then worked with my top 30 people and created digital twins of them. Agents back in 2023 when agent wasn't the most used word on LinkedIn. And then Very quickly from that, we had clients interested in deploying those digital twins. And what was a feature of the services business that I was running suddenly became a product that clients were buying.
Speaker: It's an incredible journey. I want to go back a bit. I think of CMO as one of the hardest jobs in the C-suite. It's a role where people don't often stay in that role at different organizations for a very long, you get maybe 18 months, two years, if you're not proving incredible results, you're axed. It's a high pressure role.
Speaker: There's complexity in keeping teams depending on the organization that you're working with and the resources that you have. You had a really great run as a CMO. What do you think made you so good at that particular unique role?
Speaker: I think it's coming with a problem first mentality. And so many people come in with a tool, right? Whether that's SEO or GEO or ads or what have you. And what I've been particularly good at is being able to help businesses, whether that's been my clients or the brands that I've run, really understand the problem that we're trying to solve. And I think that's where many organizations fall apart is not spending enough time in discovery and understanding the problem that needs to be solved in order to unlock the opportunity. I think the second skill set that I have is really understanding systems and people because as a CMO, particularly if you're running a large team, getting from a to Z is not always a straight line because there are dependencies, there are systems, there are other stakeholders and stakeholder management. So it's really understanding the ecosystem that you work in in order to achieve the goal that you've created to solve the problem that you've defined.
Speaker: I'm going to presume you have very good pattern recognition. Do you think that's true? I would agree. Yes, absolutely. And then in 2016, you decided to make the leap. Obviously, it seems like a very smart move and you're doing things on the bleeding edge right now of AI. What was that decision like for you and why did you do it at that time?
Speaker: I always joke that after a career of herding cats and herding people, I stopped liking people as much And that's a bit of a joke in terms of what I stopped liking in corporate was the politics. In order to get to that problem solving, it often moved at the speed of committee as opposed to the speed of innovation.
Speaker: And stakeholder management, as you get more senior, began to preempt the actual problem management because selling through an idea, an opportunity, meant that you had to go through several layers. And sometimes those decisions weren't driven by the business, but they were driven by territory or ego or other reasons, right? And and so I loved what I was doing. And i missed the craft of what got me to that role in the first place. And so I decided at that point that it was an opportunity for reinvention. And so to be able to do what I love to do, but in the context of my own company and my own agency. So rather than solving big problems for one brand and then fighting through the ecosystem to get that problem solved. I wanted to do it for multiple brands and to be able to pick and pack the best and the brightest that I had reached into to solve those problems.
Speaker: Also too, at that point, I saw a change that was happening in terms of potential inflection points. I saw many people who were leaving their roles and organizations. So VPs, creative directors, and going out and hanging out their own shingle, but weren't very successful because they didn't know how to sell themselves. They knew how to sell companies and and ideas, but they weren't necessarily able to sell themselves. And at the same time, I saw companies struggling at getting the right talent accessible. So I believed at that point, there was a model to be the bridge between that supply and demand.
Speaker: I wrote down politics, speed of committee, and that what you said resonated with the being around. I know it's a joke and I understand you don't truly mean it, but the idea of after years of managing people or being in like a corporate environment and managing stakeholders that you start to not like people so much. I do think if someone is like a thoughtful, attuned, ethical manager, people management can take a toll on you. in a way that you don't always talk about. It's hard. We always joke that the job would be easy if it weren't for the people, right? Because that often takes up so much of the process of getting from a to Z. So I'm curious about that first year where you were starting something fresh on your own, not in a corporate environment.
Speaker: Was that mostly fun, exciting, positive for you? Or because I talked to so many founders and I know my own experience of going from corporate to starting something on my own. It was a kind of difficult year in that I had to confront a lot of things around how I thought about myself. What was that experience like for you?
Speaker: So I would say it was 80% positive and joyful and discovery and 20% nail biting. Oh my God, why did I make this decision? So I'll talk about the 20% and then I'll focus more on the 80%. So when you're in corporate, much of your life is designed for you, particularly if you're a C-suite leader, right? And you're managing a team. You're not out.
Speaker: pitching new business. You are not out reinventing an organization that is a thousand or 10,000 people. What happens is you go through strategic planning process along with your peers. You define business strategies, your budget is handed to you, and then you deploy that budget and then you execute according to plan to your KPIs and you rinse and repeat that every year. So there is a predictability to it. And that's what organizations are, right? Organizations are created in order to create value and to do it at scale, you need structure and structure requires repeatability and the ability to have consistency, right?
Speaker: When you move into an entrepreneur, all of that is gone because you are the one pitching for your next meal, for your next paycheck, for your next deal. And you're doing it in a bit of a vacuum of structure because you're reinventing everything, your positioning, how you pitch your clients, etc. So that's the nail biting part. And especially in that first year, you don't have cycles and so you don't know your cash flow, you don't know demand, etc. And so you're figuring that all out. And you go from riches where you've got a ton of volume to, oh my gosh, where is my next deal going to come from? So you have very high highs. and very fearful lows as you are trying to do your next thing. So that's hard when you are coming from an area of predictability. The other thing with it is you need to change certain mindsets and structures.
Speaker: When you're in corporate, you are there to drive a path that you may or may not have been defined. So you are managing a system, you are managing stakeholders, you are going down a path that has been trodden in the past, even if you're creating new products. When you are an entrepreneur, you're reinventing every day. So the ability to lean into your intuition and create connections where they weren't there and to appreciate when there may be opportunity that doesn't seem laid out like a five-year corporate plan, But you see a spark and a nugget and to be able to lean into intuition. And I don't want to use the word manifest because that doesn't feel corporate and real. But it is. It is about manifesting opportunity by recognizing paths that might not seem logical at the time, but turn into something magical. That is the biggest thing that I've learned as an entrepreneur is to lean into my intuition and then
Speaker: see the opportunities that others might not lean into it and they become amazing things. Yeah, I appreciate everything you just said. I feel like manifest as a concept has come up in so many conversations I've had recently. And I think in the entrepreneur founder space, it's present.
Speaker: Can you say a little bit more about it? I'm liking the vibe I think you're taking toward it, if I understand it. So in the world of unpredictability as an entrepreneur, I find the best entrepreneurs are able to plant a number of different seedlings and then see the patterns and then connect paths that might not be obvious and then turn them into something.
Speaker: And so as part of this, a big belief system that I've always had when I became an entrepreneur is when you put good out there, good will come back. And there are books written about give and take. I think it's by Adam Grant, where by putting added value without necessarily expecting compensation in return, you are planning seats, both in terms of the value of your brand, value that you've given people, new relationships, and essentially investing in an ecosystem and network that can give back to you. And when you do that and you need to have a goal, there will be flickers of opportunity that don't make sense in a strategic plan. And I'll go back to the example of me and creating an AI business. I am non-technical. I come from 25 years of marketing. I understand systems. I understand people. I have never developed an app.
Speaker: But when ChatGPT and AI came into the world, I saw risk, which is, hey, this new technology may replace my existing business through automation. It will impact my margins. It will impact demand. It will impact alternatives to what I offer. And so I went deep into prompt engineering, but very much with the goal, with a view of continuing to grow my business and to find alternative models that may replace lost revenue. so that's a bit of manifesting, right? Manifesting isn't just putting a wish out there and hoping that it'll come back to you in the mail.
Speaker: It is about having a goal. It is about understanding where you want to take your business and then putting the energy out there to attract opportunities that help you achieve that goal mindfully. And when you have that level of focus, you may see opportunities that others don't. So as I went into prompt engineering, I became a trainer. I became very good at it.
Speaker: And then I became the lead trainer for the Canadian Marketing Association. And people asked me to speak because as one of the very early people with both industry expertise and marketing expertise, married with this new capability. And then I was training large organizations and I became quite good at it.
Speaker: And so by deepening that understanding, I was then able to build digital twins because I understood the capability of marketing. I did not have a plan to become a product developer, but I knew what I wanted to do.
Speaker: i embraced opportunities that were scary and very new. Going out there and saying you're a prompt engineer when it is with the early days of prompting and you're learning this stuff in Discord is kind of scary. You feel like you're faking your way through it, right? But I was one of the people who were better than others and i provided value. And all that cumulatively turned into an opportunity to create a product which is now over a million dollars and is used by large organizations.
Speaker: manifesting luck, expertise, being at the right place at the right time. You can use different words for that, but it's about having a vision, embracing unpredictability, and then leaning into where you see opportunity.
Speaker: Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about, Ajanta, can you talk about the work that you're doing now, today? And I'm sure I'll have follow-up questions. Then I want to dig into your day-to-day. I want to understand your mornings, your day, your evening, as much as you're willing to share, but maybe just...
Speaker: What is the direction of travel for you and what are you all focused on right now? Absolutely. so I don't know that I'd be able to say any one day is the same as the next. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I think the pattern that I've always had, whether it was a CMO or moving into creating my own agency or this, is helping people find joy and value in their work. That's what I've always loved to do. And so whether it's managing a team of 20 or 200, I always took care to create opportunities for people and mentor and help them get out of the noise which often takes up corporate, right? Let's be real. Most of us in corporate do not jump out of bed going, oh my gosh, I get to do a contact report or do my expenses or whatever administrivia is not part of your joy. And oftentimes that part represents 50, 60% of our work, right? And so I always like to help to try to cut people out of that. And so helping people find joy in the work through the value they create. I've always also believed in understanding the future of work and redefining the way we work.
Speaker: to get there. And so that's a consistency in how I've led myself. So corporate, very predictable ways of doing things. I created an agency that was distributed and was a very different model, but worked very well with both the people that we hired as well as the clients that we served. And they loved that model because it was flexible. It was different. It let them get to the talent. And these consultants were able to focus on the craft that they love to do. So fast forward to agenda, what I'm proud of being able to do here is embrace a new technology and redefine a different way of working that augments humans as opposed to replaces them, which is often the narrative that is surrounding AI and AI automation. So the work that we do is we have created digital twins.
Speaker: Agents is the common parlance that you see in LinkedIn. And so we've designed our agents to essentially be twins of real experts and organizations. So whether that is the creative director or the marketing strategist, the creative brief writer, the ah HR leader, and they execute that capability at a much different level.
Speaker: deeper level of expertise than just opening up ChatGPT. And how our clients use them is they use them to augment their people. So you might have a limited marketing department and you might not have the best creative director. You have a junior writer and a pretty good marketing strategist. So suddenly that marketing strategist has 150 helpers to help them do the research, to do the competitive review, to create a better creative brief, to maybe concept a few ideas where they want to take the campaign by themselves. And then they would work with experts to uplift that to an award-winning capability. So it's not replacing the individual. It is giving them new levels of expertise that they have access to and taking away some of the more administrative work that they probably don't enjoy doing.
Speaker: Yeah, I think maybe there's less paid administrative work than there was in the past. And when you only need one person or a more junior person to do what maybe be historically when you got there, you would have said, all right, we have got the budget now, let's put two mid-level folks on XYZ.
Speaker: I do think there's so much anxiety and people are paying attention to. met a laid off so many people a few months ago, et cetera. What would you say to someone who is anxious about their job security as it relates to AI?
Speaker: Maybe because they do see it being replaced because they're in more of a functional admin role and or they're in marketing. What advice might you have for them both in mindset and how to approach this work and also from a skill development perspective to keep themselves as relevant as they can for as long as they can?
Speaker: I'm going to tell you ah philosophy and then I'll tell you a story. And so to answer the question succinctly, AI is out of Pandora's box. It is here and it is changing entire swaths of industry. So whether you're an admin person or a CEO or a mid-level marketer, you need to learn and understand these tools. And you need to understand how it can augment you and make you better and be able to give you wings in areas that you might not have an expertise in. And so we all remember the matrix, right? Keanu Reeves and he plugged in. All of a sudden he learned how to fly a helicopter or do Kung Fu and that sort of thing. And that's the power of AI is it could teach us things and it could also give us capabilities it wouldn't have before. So I want to talk a little bit about talent models.
Speaker: yeah In the 1990s, the talent model used to be shaped. And what that meant was you became an expert. and you became a more expert of that type of expert. So you became the best accountant, and then you became the manager of a team of accountants, and then you became the VP of the accounting team, right? It was a very linear route in corporate to get the gold watch and retire. And you got promoted the more expertise you added to that I-shaped capability.
Speaker: Then suddenly in the 2000s, 2000s and 10s, we talked about a T-shaped model of talent. And what that meant was you tended to be really good at one or two things. And then the top of the T meant that you could collaborate with others. And the more collaborative you were, the more people you got to manage because you could work well with others. But you always had a certain expertise and that got you promoted and that got you the gold watch.
Speaker: And the idea now is an M-shaped talent. And what that means is a mindset of flexibility, a mindset that learning how to learn is actually an incredible technical skill. And I might be an accountant today, but I need to be flexible enough that maybe I'm gonna become a prompt engineer tomorrow, which is me, right? And that I can use AI, not necessarily to become the expert in that skill, but to basically embed an expertise in myself. So the M, think of it as a bit of a mindset where I'm open and I'm willing to take the risk to change radically my definition of my expertise. And then the bridges, the V part in between the M is the willingness to embrace technologies or new learning in order to gain that skill set, because you might borrow that expertise or you might learn that expertise. And so what I would encourage people to do is have skill, have mindset. So the mindset is the willingness to be agile, the willingness to be wrong, the willingness to learn, the flexibility to not define yourself. by whatever degree you got or whatever you've been doing for the last 10 years. So again, me, a non-technical marketer became a product creator in AI of all things, right? That is a shift. Then from a skill perspective, it is continuing to learn a particular vocation that you like, whether that's marketing or accounting or law. but augment it with understanding how to use AI. You don't need to become a programmer, but you need to learn how to use the different tools that are emerging to give yourself that ability to be flexible. The story that I'll give you is actually IKEA.
Speaker: And this is more for leaders and people who are transforming their industries as opposed to transforming themselves. So IKEA I don't think it was in the US, but it was one of their largest franchises, probably in Sweden or Europe or what have you. But in any case, in this particular region, they had instituted a chatbot and they called it Billy after the bookcases back in 2020 to And Billy was so good that it essentially answered about 50, 60% of the calls that were coming in. Because it's IKEA, right? Like people are asking for when is it open? How do I return my Billy bookcase? And how do I get an extra wrench or something like that, right? So most of them are predictable. And so the chatbot was actually able to displace 8,500 people. They didn't need... 8,500 call center people because the chatbot was able to address many of those low-lying things.
Speaker: That franchise decided not to fire at the 8,500 people and instead retrain them to become remote design consultants because what they saw was a trend where people were renovating their houses, buying houses, upgrading their houses. And suddenly, these design consultants could tell you how to build a kitchen or redo your bedroom or whatever. And they were all remote.
Speaker: And what IKEA did was they saved a bunch of money not having to pay these people to answer the phones. But instead, what they created was 1.3 billion pound or euro, I think, piece of business where these people were design consultants. So that's a great example of M-shaped, right? I used to answer phones. I still answer phones. But instead of telling people where to return the bookcase, I'm now giving them advice on how to remodel their kitchen.
Speaker: So that's at a corporate level. But that same M-shaped view, that mindset of being able to change, the courage to be able to learn a new vocation at a snap, And using the tools like AI or learning systems in order to give you those new skills is what will protect you in the future.
Speaker: I love that story about IKEA. That's very interesting. Did they express what was the thinking behind it from a corporate perspective? Did they say, we've been thinking and investing in this other talent pool and this is the perfect opportunity to do so? Was it more of a sense of a moral obligation to their employees or was there even maybe something around... laying off that number of employees where they're like, this actually structurally is better for us. Did they get into that? I didn't go deep into it because it was covered in a lot of HR magazines and case studies, but it's actually a business strategy decision. Someone had realized that there was a market need and a market demand for design consultancy. And when you think about that, IKEA is not necessarily the place that you would think about it, right? Because when you think about IKEA, like oftentimes we think about it as the furniture we used when we were struggling students just graduating from university, right? Whereas the reality now is it underpins many kitchens, many beautiful houses. It's actually quite design forward. And so someone at a strategy level saw that opportunity. So that same mindset, I'm describing it as a corporate mindset shift, That equally applies to you as a person.
Speaker: It's really interesting. And it's funny when you were talking earlier about how you just got very into prompt engineering, I wrote down autodidactic. And I feel like to embody being autodidactic is something it sounds like you'd encourage people to do in this new age. I love the idea of the M-shaped.
Speaker: It's very interesting and very cool. I know no day is the same, but I'm so curious about like how you structure your day, how you're trying to support yourself as you get all of these things done. What does your routine look like sometimes or most of the time? My routine is upside down right now because we're expanding into Asia. It used to be pretty predictable in Eastern Standard Time, but now I'm doing calls at 11 p.m. and 9 p.m. So if I was to break it down, what I understand about myself is my most productive hours are in the mornings.
Speaker: As much as I have to do some 9.30 or 11 p.m. calls, I am happily in bed at 10 p.m. So what I tend to do is I get myself outside first thing. And so being able to have an interruption, so not rolling over and just going into work, but going outside and giving yourself that break to Think about the opportunities. Think about the day. i have two very giant dogs. i have two well-found crosses that weigh 100 pounds each. They walk me and there is no choice to go outside. So that actually sets the day and it sets you at an even pace where you're not worrying about things, but you're thinking about things. So giving yourself the space. to plan forward. That's my walks.
Speaker: And what I tend to try to do in the mornings is squeeze the most important strategic components. So if I'm writing a strategy, if I'm writing a investor pitch, if I'm thinking about a product, I tend to stack that at the beginning of the day in my critical management decisions because I know that I'm precious at that point. Over the course of the day, everything is random. So I go from doing a business pitch to somewhere outside of Canada to doing a podcast, to writing a keynote, to developing an agent. And so that tends to be the middle of my day. And then the afternoons are where I spend time developing the networks and the relationships. So that would be ah dinner or a coffee. My keynotes are often in the afternoon and I'm often asked to attend events and panels and networks and I find that's the afternoon. So if you break it down in terms of a typical day, and there isn't a typical day as much as I've tried to explain it that way, giving yourself the space to think is critical. So whether that is a walk in the morning, time in the gym or time where you're not going from your phone to bed in the evening, whatever it is for you. The second is understand your most powerful hours and invest your most important time where you create your greatest value in your most powerful hours. Right. Don't try to squeeze that to the last minute in the evening if you're a morning person. Allow time for your day to create those connections. As much as a joke, I really got to like you to put on pants to come downtown. I do invest in going to panels, connecting with people, giving back to the community, because that's where those uncommon collisions happen. You will never be able to manifest your goal sitting at your computer or working on your phone. That manifestation often comes through unlikely collisions that you have created a path for by being present in networking events or speaking at a panel or having a coffee to provide mentorship or Yeah. Doing a podcast.
Speaker: So giving yourself the space there doesn't need to be every day, but you need to plan for it or it's never going to happen. Thank you. feel like you give such great advice as you're talking.
Speaker: This is a small thing, but... I've interviewed so many founders in the last few months and female founders mostly for this podcast. And dogs are such a key component of so many female founders morning routines. And I feel like there should be something about female founders and the dogs that support them. They get us out. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything I didn't ask about that you feel like you'd want to say as it relates to the conversation we've had? feel like you've been so generous and you're so eloquent. It's been truly, really fun to just sit here and listen to you. I think one of the things that we should cover as female founders is it's not always easy, right? And when I look at the U.S. or i go into networking sessions, primarily with men, everybody's killing it
Speaker: everybody's doing amazing, everybody's raising, and everything seems so easy with scaling. And the reality as a founder is it's not always that. There are hard times, there are scary times, there are times where you don't know if you're going to make it, right? And as women, we often internalize that, and as women, we don't often ask for help.
Speaker: And if you are the founder, everybody's looking at you, and you need to be out there even if you're breaking inside, right? And we've all been through that in one form or another, because I don't know any founder where every day has been easy and they've had no hard days. We've all had hard days. We've all had the anxiety. We've all woken up at night going, can I make it? And somehow we do, right? And so acknowledging that is part of being a founder and finding your tribe and showing your vulnerability and others who are willing to be part of that. And then getting...
Speaker: assistance or just even support, right? So that ability, which is the opposite of the networking groups where everybody seems to have to be successful and show success and we're all comparing our success, there is an opportunity to create large, small, maybe it's two people, a tribe where you can show your vulnerability, show when things aren't working and then learn from others. So having that champion. That might be your co-founder.
Speaker: That might be a friend who's gone through the same thing. That might be a mentor. But that is so critical for succeeding as part of it where you can show where you're losing.
Speaker: right? Where you can show where you're failing and you can have someone that is willing to even just listen to you and not necessarily give advice. Cause sometimes that's just what we need is to be able to acknowledge when we aren't killing it, have someone listen, help us calm down so that we have the energy the next day to wake up and kill it by achieving that next step that gets us over whatever, it is that's causing us a speed bump in our journey. Because entrepreneurship is not a linear journey. There are always speed bumps. You need a tribe, a system, cheerleaders that will help you get through those speed bumps in whatever way is valuable to you. There was a book, and I can't even remember the title of the book, but the idea that you are the cumulative energy of the five people that you spend the most time with, right?
Speaker: When you think about that concept, if you spend your time with people whose energy... whose capability, whose ethics don't match how you want to be. yeah you will go down that route. Whereas if you can find a tribe of five people who can contribute to you in whatever way you need, that might be advice or just listening to you or having a drink on a Friday afternoon, and you can contribute back to them, and you invest in spending time with those five people, you will be better tomorrow than you are today.
Speaker: Thank you, Carla. I really appreciate what you said. And I think a theme with some founders that i feel like you touched on is how the difficult moments, especially if you're just seeing the facade or the veneer of success and chillness that other founders are projecting, I think then people really, they can feel deep shame about it And they're like, it's my dark secret that like things were really hard last month. And I feel so shameful and I just need to desperately get it to a better spot without any opportunity. Everybody's killing it.
Speaker: Yeah. well Everybody's killing it except for me. And that's so not true. I've been traveling for essentially eight weeks, right? So we've been accepted into bunch of trade missions. I've been in Asia three times in three separate three-week trips. since February, right? And if you go to my LinkedIn, I look like i have an amazing life. I'm posting photos of mountains that I've climbed and people that I've met and things that I've been in. And yes, there were successes. I was there and those are beautiful pictures, but they're highly curated. There are moments where I'm so exhausted because I've had four hours of sleep for three weeks straight that i sat in my hotel room crying for no reason other than i was incredibly stressed out and I needed an outlet to get that out.
Speaker: There have been moments where I've woken up with anxiety. I've gotten food poisoning. So it's not all glamorous. And so don't buy the LinkedIn postings of everybody killing it. There are moments everybody goes through, no matter whether you are riding a wave of success, everybody has those moments. So don't think you're the only one not killing it. Carla, thank you so much. We will put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if anyone listening wants to scroll down and check or connect, they can. Is there anywhere else that you'd like us to send people?
Speaker: Our website is Agentive. And so if anybody is looking for agents who are heard out, I think this isn't meant to be a promotion. It's meant to be able to share with other founders that it is an exciting journey. You asked before how much was joyful and how much was painful.
Speaker: Yes, there is pain, but that also gives relative view to joy. And I would say 80% of my day, I love what I do. I always joke that I could never hold down a corporate job again because this is what I was meant to do. And if this AI thing doesn't work out, I'd sooner move my two dogs, my two kids and my husband into the van life in order to stay an entrepreneur versus trying to get a job. So i love it.
Speaker: Don't let the hard days dissuade you. This is an amazing life. And if you've ventured into this, believe in yourself and the ability to create great success. Thank you so much, Carla. Thank you, Meredith.
