Arkansas Inc. Podcast: AI Companies in Arkansas - Eric Howerton and Uday Akkaraju

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TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Eric Howerton. I'm co-founder and chief growth officer with AdFury.ai.

Hey, I'm Uday Akkaraju, founder and CEO of BOND.AI, and you're listening to the Arkansas Inc. podcast.

Welcome to the Arkansas Inc. Podcast. My name is Esperanza Masana Crane, and I serve as director of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development Division for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Today, I'm very excited to highlight Arkansas technology industry, particularly the growing artificial intelligence industry in the state.

I'm joined today by two leaders of Arkansas-based AI companies, Uday Akkaraju and Eric Howerton. Welcome, Eric, and welcome, Uday.

Uday is the CEO of BOND.Ai, an award-winning human-centered artificial intelligence platform for banks. Uday has a background in interaction design and cognitive science and focuses on making machine intelligence empathetic and created the world's first empathy engine for finance. Uday was recognized as an international innovator by the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Prior to BOND.Ai, Uday founded and successfully ran an artificial intelligence research lab that helped early-stage companies design the product and take it to market. He regularly speaks at international AI and fintech conferences such as the Mobile World Congress, Paris Fintech Forum, Money 2020, IBM Tech Talks, Signal, Finivate, Voice, and more. Outside of the office, Uday advises several AI startups and entrepreneurs to help create fair and equitable machine learning systems.

Uday, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Eric Howerton is the co-founder and chief growth officer at AdFury.ai, a Northwest Arkansas-based retail and tech company using AI to automate the creation and deployment of image and video ads across retail media networks. He previously co-founded White Spider, a digital shopper agency that helped Walmart and its suppliers drive measurable online growth and was acquired by London-based Essential in 2021. A longtime entrepreneur with more than 25 years in marketing, technology, and digital strategy, Eric continues to build platforms that scale content and drive value in the retail ecosystem. He is also the owner of Doing Business in Bentonville and podcastvideos.com, where he is recording from today.

Eric and Uday, welcome to the Arkansas Inc. Podcast.

Thank you. It's a pleasure being here.

Thank you.

Okay, so for those that aren't familiar with your companies, can you give us a brief elevator pitch of your companies? And I'll start with you, Uday.

Sure. So we are BOND.AI, right? The name is bond. So essentially the AI platform is basically to build a bond between the AI and the consumer. It can be any field. So we started with finance. So what we did with finance is we actually built real bonds between the customers and the finance institutions. But the original AI, like I said, it's basically built to create bonds. So right now we're actually exploring into or extending into healthcare. We're doing the same between the patient and the doctor or the hospital systems.

That's fantastic. You know, I was reading a little bit about your Empathy Engine and I was so curious about it. Now that you explained BOND and the reason behind it, it makes more sense. Can you tell me a little bit about this Empathy Egine?

Sure. So my background and most of my team's background, my co-founder's background is human-centered design. So human-centered design is all about understanding the needs of your consumers, right? So if you have to really understand the needs of your consumers, you have to have empathy, right? So people get confused between empathy and sympathy, but empathy is really, really different. It's not sympathizing, but really understanding what their needs are.

So based on our background, based on our research, I think we've designed this AI to try to understand the needs of the consumer. So that's why we named this the empathy engine because what happens is AI is all about data, right? It's garbage in and garbage out. So if you don't have the right data, you don't have the right predictions. So most of the time what happens is you don't have enough data. So if you don't have enough data, how do you understand the needs of the consumer?

So this empathy engine is basically designed to plot those missing data points, make it holistic, and then understand the needs of the consumer and then address them in the shortest possible time.

That's fantastic. So the importance of connecting with your consumers and a lot of thought that has gone behind everything that you put. So who's your audience on the healthcare sector? Who are your customers? And on the finance sector, who are you going after? So again, the concept is the same. On the financial side, our customers, it's a B2B business. So we go after financial institutions. We help the financial institutions basically help their end consumers. So if their end consumers are having needs, basically that'll translate into needs for the bank. Correct. So a healthy consumer of an institution makes the bank healthier. So that's the thesis for us on the financial side.

On the healthcare side too, I think when we even started this company, we realized, and this was back in 2018, we realized the top two needs for consumers is money and health, right? So, but these are the two most regulated industries in the world. So we cannot attack both at the same time. So we started with finance. We achieved quite a bit of success in the financial side of it. And then just last year, we said, okay, we have to move to our second vision, which is helping people on the healthcare side.

So when we thought about healthcare in 2018, it was different. We had a pandemic after that. We had so much change in the healthcare system after that. So we had to reassess what needs are we going to go after? So we did a big user study talking to people what their needs are and all that stuff. And then we understood people want to live longer, healthier lives. That's the thing. It's not about living 200 years. Even if they want to live 85, they want to live like they were 45 or 55. So we call it not lifespan, but health span. Right. So this new product, which we have launched just two weeks ago, but we have done several tests in the last one and a half years, is about how the empathy engine can extend the health span of people. That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing. Just amazing work that you're doing.

Okay, Eric, can you give me a brief elevator pitch for your company and what you do?

Yeah, thank you. So AdFury.ai a self-service ad tech platform powered by AI that is specifically helping retail media network display and video search advertising. So what we're trying to accomplish is to create more efficiency through the creative scaling process. A lot of times the agencies or the marketers for brands have trouble creating multiple ads across multiple keyword phrases. It just takes a lot of time. And so we're able to scale those source ads, creatives out to more ad creatives that are attached to the keyword phrases, which increases relevancy for the shopper or for the customer. So it's all about saving time and driving more clicks within a retail media network.

And I would imagine you are also saving the client money and the fact that they don't have to redo multiple or resize ads multiple times as well, right?

Yeah, yeah, you're hitting the nail on the head. I mean, like, you know, obviously time is money for every business, right? And not only that, I think one could measure, right? So like, let's say we might be saving 30 minutes of time, you know, per ad creation because a lot of the retail media networks are requiring like nine to 12 different ad unit specifications per individual ad campaign. And so, you know, the ability to do that, what we call knowledge-based work, which is really not creative work, right? It's more just tactical stuff. Our AI is able to automatically do that instantaneously. So it takes that time off the plate.

But in addition, the thing that's hard to measure is the stress amount that maybe creatives feel, right? When, you know, a creative designer, you know, or artist gets into their field, they're very visionary, they're very creative, as we all know. We want them to continue going down that path so that they can keep creating really awesome campaigns and doing that type of stuff and working to figure out bigger problems than just doing, you know, minutiae type work that's just very technical and doesn't really add too much more value, but it has to be done. And so that's where we really feel that AI can fit in in this space. And we're really going places that no one's really gone before because it's so detailed and cumbersome today.

And then, of course, you know, it also helps the advertiser make more money because they can be more relevant, get those clicks. It helps the retail media network drive more ad revenue. And ultimately, it helps the customer when they're shopping to have a better shopping experience and save them time because the advertising that's popping up is relevant and they're able to make buying decisions much more quickly. Yes, efficiency. Efficiency is just a wonderful thing. So who are some of your clients that you work with? Yeah, so right now we're in beta test mode. So we're working with a multiple amount of major brands, what we would call first party brands that are, you know, have bigger agreements for owned inventory within retailers. And then we're also working with third party marketplace type sellers that are smaller. And so there, you know, we got some beta users now and we're looking to go to full launch here in the next 30 days or so.

Which I understand is a very short time span in terms of beta testing for what you're trying to do, right?

It is. We launched our beta about mid-March really. And so yeah, our turnaround time is really fast. We built this thing pretty fast. Now, I would say that the reason we could is that we actually, our development stack team, you know, our executive team, we all have a lot of deep experience in the retail media network space. So there's not much of that discovery period where I think a lot of folks may, you know, get bottlenecked up or spend more time. We know exactly really what is needed to be built and clients needed to be built. And a lot of this is about just kind of adding more polishing paintbrushes across the canvas versus trying to figure out what art piece we're going to do. So we're coming to the table with a lot of expertise.

Yes. And now that you touch on the subject of expertise, I want to ask you, what made you start at Fury? Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how this idea came to fruition?

Yeah, so previously I had a company called WhyteSpyder. We were founded and headquartered here in Northwest Arkansas, which is home to Walmart, you know, Tyson, JB Hunt. And WhyteSpyder back in the day, you know, about a decade ago, we really got into helping Walmart accelerate its digital side of its business. Just meaning that we understood their vision and we really got into that swim lane. And we knew e-commerce and we helped what we think champion the community, the suppliers and brands to accelerate their digital presence on product detail pages on walmart.com.

And you got to kind of remember that this was, you know, for the most part, the supplier community and Walmart were very much used to brick and mortar, right? It was all about brick and mortar for the historic Walmart that we knew. And so that transition period was really challenging. But we dove in headfirst. We knew e-com. We championed the need for product detail pages on e-commerce. And then we also, as Walmart continued to transition to more self-service retail media network platform through Walmart Connect, we were very much in the moment and evolving with their self-service platform.

And so through that experience, I mean, we really understood the retailer landscape. We understood brands' problems. We understood agencies' problems. And so after our exit from White Spider, you know, there's a further need in what we see as the content supply chain, which is extremely complex and has a lot of friction involved in it. To, you know, as you have new media sources like retail media that are opening up, it comes with another set of requirements. And we could just see that need of how the painful point is for both ad agencies, media buying companies, brand, internal brand marketing teams, and for the retailer, this little niche problem that it's actually causing a lot of bottleneck for opportunities for all these parties.

And, you know, we know video quite well. We know imagery well. We know retailers well. And so it's a pretty obvious fix in our mind. And such a beautiful combination of your background and how you've been able to grow it and obviously team and find the right team to work with you as well.

For sure. Uday, what about you? How did you start your company? What made you start it?

I'll tell you just a small tidbit before we started the company. So all my projects, all my work experience before starting the company was, again, solving problems, right? So my first thing was in Japan where a big gaming company we were working for wanted to solve a problem called Hikokomori. So what that means is people, kids in Japan were actually locking themselves up in rooms for six months or maybe eight months and not coming out. And the gaming companies needed to solve that because they were playing games sitting inside. So it's a very, very culture-specific. It's a very, very human-centered problem, right? So successfully solved that. And then I moved on to different continents, different countries to solve such problems. We need a separate podcast on how you solved that problem, by the way. Yeah, so that kind of got attention in the AI world of who I am, and then I got to work on projects in Copenhagen, Spain, lived in all these countries, then landed up in Canada. And then I think, again, all this about solving problems there, right?

So one of my friends was in New York. I was doing another company before this in San Francisco. I said, hey, we have all our customers. We're trying to do a retail presence, and we cannot figure out what they need so that we are suffering. How do we market the products and stuff like that? So we went there. We took the transaction data of these customers, and then our engine was able to find out the needs. So we actually tagged the company then. It's AI for good. What we're doing is AI for good. So we held those financial institutions. They were actually making a lot of money. So basically money is a byproduct of doing good. So we realized that. So that's why we tagged it AI for good. And since then, we were solving all these problems for these institutions. They're making money. Their customers are happy. And the same thing we're actually doing on the health side right now. I think the health side is even more exciting and more rewarding than the financial side. But here we are.

How did you end up in Arkansas? Okay, it's a good story. I mean, when I was in New York, all these institutions actually held most of their bank in one of the companies here. So FIS, which is right here, actually holds 70% of the bank's data in the world, actually. So then heard about them, and they were actually doing a program right here in the Venture Center. So that actually brought us here. We said, okay, we'll experiment here, stay here for three months, collect the data, and see what we can do. But we ended up staying here. And three months ended up in how? Six years now. Six years. And more to come. Of course, yeah. This is home now.

Fantastic. Well, we are so happy that you're here in the state of Arkansas and all the wonderful things that you're doing. Thank you, Pia. We're very blessed to be here. What an honor.

So this podcast is going to be heard by several entrepreneurs. So as you have rolled out so many programs and a team and built this company, what are some things, Eric, like you mentioned, you have an understanding of the retailer, the agency space, content supply chain. What are some things that you think have benefited you in your journey, and how can you give advice to entrepreneurs on how they can scale their business?

Yeah, that's a large question because there's just so many variables, right? I think that it just depends on the type of business that you're wanting to start, how you're wanting to start it, and what your scaling vision is. I think that the thing about entrepreneurship that's really important is that there is some introspection that's needed about where, you know, if you're already been working professionally for a few years or a decade, it means something different to you. It means something different to you if you have kids and family or if you don't, you know, and where you're at.

I think that, you know, but for myself and my journey, I mean, I really started at a young age. I didn't understand what I was. I just knew I had some vision, and I was trying to solve a problem. But I do think that across the board there is to understand the definition of an entrepreneur. You know, it's somebody that sees a market need, is relentless in figuring out how to solve that need, and also has a personal financial risk associated with the business. So you have to really have those three components to truly be an entrepreneur. Otherwise, you could be like in a different category because if you raise capital and you don't have any financial money, you know, your own financial risk attached to it, you might, you know, you're really in a different spot than what maybe an entrepreneur is that has a lot on the line.

And in my case, I put everything on the line back at White Spider. You know, so if anything happened in the business, I mean, everything's tied into that, and that caused me to be 100% sacrificial to ensuring that the business was successful. And that honestly means a lot, especially in the roller coaster of owning a business.

So I think that you have to introspect, like what are you willing to do to solve that problem? If it's something that you're waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning and excited and you can't sleep because you're excited to solve that opportunity, then you might be an entrepreneur. Otherwise, you could be a capitalist, an investor, you could be a manager. You know, there's a lot of other ways to go, but you got to be careful because at 2 o'clock in the morning, you'll also wake up with a burden of risk that could destroy your life if you're not excited to overcome. Started to overcome. Yeah, I think it takes a very special person to be an entrepreneur, very passionate, very driven. But I love what you said about your ability to understand and you took the time to study your market, to study the space that you're in. And I think for entrepreneurs, that's something so important. One thing is to have your idea, but also the preparation component is what I was also trying to get at that you have been, well, both of you have successfully been able to accomplish.

Yeah, it's a lot easier today, right? I can look back over a 15, 20 year career of being in the content space and I can, like for example with Ad Fury, it was really obvious to me that there is a problem. No one else is going to fix it. And if they do try to fix it, it's not going to be done right. Big companies can't fix it because of the bureaucracy. They're not fast enough. I can start something up. They ask too many questions of themselves and there's too many opinions and it can be challenging for somebody in that scenario. Whereas a startup like us, we're able to pivot and move with absolute relentless speed, which is needed in this particular supply chain.

But if I'm rewound back to when in the beginning days, there was, I mean, I think ignorance is bliss in some regards because like I was, I went after a really big market with not much resource. I didn't realize a lot of the red flags in the valleys that I'd be going through. But because I was just so adamant and opportunistic and believed in solving that problem, I was able to fight through all the madness. And you have done such a great job at it. So you need to be proud of yourself.

Yes. Uday, for you, in your perspective, what do you think are some tools or some guidance or some tips for entrepreneurs that can help them in their journey as they're launching their startups?

Yeah, in terms of tools, I mean, every entrepreneur wants funding, simple as that, right? So if you don't have funding, I think you cannot do anything. So as an entrepreneur, I think everybody talks about every entrepreneur is trying to solve a problem. Unfortunately, or whatever, today there are so many problems to solve. So everybody can become an entrepreneur. But it's not only that once you actually pick up a problem, you need to convince others that that is a real problem. So that is the art an entrepreneur needs to have. It's really an art because there's no process to it. Because no two people are the same and you cannot convince the one people like you did with the other.

So I think first and foremost, I think make sure like even he was saying, you need to have the funding. So you need to convince people around with your vision. So without that, I think you cannot do it. The second thing is funding is a luxury to have, correct? So you should have. When we started the company and for us, I think if I have to look at my younger self, I would say start with revenue on day one. Focus on revenue on day one. So but I will say have capital, absolutely have capital, but aim for revenue from day one. Because today you have all the resources in the world to actually do that, to have revenue from day one. Because when we started, okay, it was a product which was slowly getting into the market. People were actually trying it out. It was a new product. So we actually gave a lot of freebies. We didn't have revenue because we had the capital. But I think, like I said, there's so many problems. There's so much market out there. Just go for revenue for day one.

Thank you. Thank you. This is wonderful advice because having both of you provide and share insight on your success is very much appreciated. I want to talk a little bit about technology in the state of Arkansas and how Arkansas has been favorable for both of you. And we have talked a little bit about it. But Eric, I know you are originally from Jonesboro, correct? Yes, that's correct. Can you tell us, and I know you're also focused on hiring people in Arkansas and the importance of keeping your business in the state. How do you perceive the technology sector in the state and how has you being here in the state benefited your business?

Yeah, so I mean, I think that we're just, I believe that in comparison to other areas in the country, like we're really kind of in a startup arena right now as tech for the state of Arkansas. I'm not saying there's not great tech and there hasn't been. There has been, absolutely. And there still is today. But I think that in comparison to when we look at other areas in the U.S., like there's a lot more going on, I think, in variety and in quantity. However, I think that we have some very unique circumstances in Arkansas, right? There's major corporations that we've talked about today that have had a firm footing for decades in the state. that were started way back that are fantastic businesses providing superior value to shareholders. I mean, like there's some really awesome companies from the state of Arkansas.

And we also have a very strong history of entrepreneurism in this state that I'm excited about the opportunity that we can actually approach it in a very unique way, right? There's shoulders that we can step on that have a lot of strong foundation. Also, these other companies are in very significant large industry sectors that honestly play a dominant role in those sectors. You know, they just mentioned one like I didn't even wasn't even aware, but I mean, that's one that you could, can you build something? Can you start some tech up that can help those companies continue to be dominant and accelerate, right? Because I think a lot of folks, they look at major companies and like, oh, well, they're not under any threat. They'll be fine. They'll continue to grow. And it's just simply not true. The largest companies in the world need our help as startup entrepreneurs. They need that innovation.

And I think that that's something that we can actually, it's not that we can build companies in Arkansas. I'll take it a step further. We can create industries in Arkansas. We can change and evolve industries in Arkansas. And that's honestly what I'm personally trying to do in the retail sector, right? Like, I mean, we see Walmart as the greatest retailer, but we see them as an omni-channel retailer, which a lot of other places, a lot of folks can't see that future to be able to be convenient to the customer at any point in time. And we believe that what we can do is to help further that mission to continue to bolster our community and our state.

Yes, thank you. I think you said it perfectly, but that is very, it's very powerful and it's very helpful for us, you know, as we move forward and try to work programs to benefit the ultimate goal.

Uday, in your case, you are not originally from Arkansas and you have experience working in multiple countries all over the world. What makes Arkansas different and particularly for your company?

Yeah, so if you see for an entrepreneur, the number one thing they require is time, right? So like I said, I lived in San Francisco and New York. These are the two big startup ecosystems there. But I think what happens is you have to dedicate your time towards your vision, your people, your company, your clients, that's a lot, and then you have your family. So what actually Arkansas gave me was time, seriously speaking, because sometimes when you say entrepreneurs require ecosystems, I think it's maybe a little overrated because that ecosystem also causes you to go into a bubble. You become one of the same.

So I think what happened here, especially with us, was the innovation quotient was limitless for us because of the fact we got a great amount of time to spend on the product and the company and that. The second thing what helped us here was the quality of life because that's, I mean, again, people don't talk about it. Mental health, we talk about all that, but quality of life has a direct correlation with all your mental and physical health because that is something very unique we actually found here.

And the third is instead of an ecosystem of other entrepreneurs, what we actually found was a good ecosystem of people who wanted to work and extremely very well coachable, extremely well trainable and very well qualified. We have great universities here. I mean, all around, you look at the schools here, fantastic. So we were able to go ahead and recruit and train and get. So the first employee who joined us did not leave us even till today. So that's the thing. I think that's the kind of bond we actually saw from everyone who works with us, who trains with us. And these three, I think were invaluable for us.

Uday, you just launched two weeks ago a new app called 101 Plus. And I think you've told us a little bit about it, but what is the app and what does it do?

It's simple. Okay, this we launched it two weeks ago, but it took us 18 months to launch it. Okay, because there's a tremendous amount of AI to train behind it. This is because this is healthcare. So we had to get the right data. We had to train the right engine. So it took us 18 months, but here we are.

In simple words, right? If you ask anybody, you, me or anybody sitting in this room or listening to this podcast is what is the number one preference in life is they want to live a good life, a healthy life. They don't want to have chronic diseases. They want to avoid everything they can. So we looked at the healthcare system. And if you see even today, the healthcare system is all about sick care. There is absolutely less than 1% focus on preventive care. But again, if you see the insurance system, which is along that, again, I'm not against the insurance system, it's great, but they will basically make money by denying care. So United Insurance last quarter denied 33% of claims. So what is happening, it's not helping consumers like you and me, it's not helping the hospital systems. Arkansas, today, the hospitals get the lowest reimbursement rate in the whole country. It's in 50th position. So it's bad, right? I'm not just the state, but I think the hospital system across the country is suffering post-COVID and all that stuff. So if we can transform the healthcare system from being reactive or sick care to be preventive, it's a game changer. Somebody has to start it. That's 101 Plus.

So what it does is once you download the app, we do actually a test. You schedule a test. You can be anywhere in the country. It's a blood test. We get the blood test done. It analyzes about 150 plus biomarkers. These are not biomarkers which you get in your physical. We're talking about telomere lengths. We're talking about DNA damage. We're talking about mitochondrial efficiency. So these are biomarkers you will not get anywhere. Probably I can handpick them, maybe six or seven places in the world which do this kind of testing, and we brought it here.

Once you do the test, what we're going to do is that's where AI comes into picture, right? So the 150 biomarkers come out, and then actually when you take that 150 biomarkers to your family physician, what do they do? You have maybe high cholesterol. Maybe you have vitamin D. Take a statin, take a vitamin D. So what we're doing is we're addressing them separately. The AI comes here, correlates all these parameters compared to all the data we had in the last two years and finds the root cause of your aging. Oh, wow. So it can be as simple as a hormonal imbalance, or it can be maybe a mitochondrial efficiency is low, identify as a root cause, and then we address that root cause. So what happens is when you address the root cause, everything in your body actually starts to be working better.

I'll give you an example. In the last, we've done a lot of tests on our users. One of the person was taking about 30 medications, 30 medications, and he's 60, maybe 58 actually, 58 years old. He was taking 30 medications, and then he tried the test, and we actually identified the root cause. All he had to take is one supplement and is off all the 30 medications, and he's also off statins. That's not my husband that you're talking about, right? Yes, even my dad, right? That's the problem. So that's the power of this. We are making this completely preventive so that your health span and lifespan are equal.

Fantastic. Is there a cost to download the app, or how does it work? So again, giving you context. Context is very important, right? So these kind of health span or longevity institutes, there are like a handful of them in the world. I went around them during our research phase. The costs of these tests start about $15,000, and then it goes on and on. At some places, when you want some supplements or interventions, it can be even half a million dollars. So we actually brought it down to $999. So the test costs, download the app, schedule a test, it just costs $999.

Fantastic. And is that something that can be paid through HSA? Yeah, it can be, yes. Absolutely, yeah. Just providing some context. So if anybody has questions or would like to learn more about it, they can just look up your app, 101+. The website is 101.plus. 101.plus. Yep. Perfect. For our listeners, you know, to go and check it out. Absolutely.

Yes. Eric, you recently launched Adfury last month at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas. What was that experience like? And how has the company been doing since the launch? And can you give us some anecdotes or anything in particular about that summit?

Yeah, it kind of ties back. So I think that from an investment standpoint of a new company, they may agree with this. I mean, we launched our product for beta at a major industry event, which would probably be extremely risky for a lot of folks, right? Like it puts a lot of pressure on us. However, I chose to do that for primarily the first, the biggest reason was, is that if we can go to an event where a lot of our customer base is at, and we show our software and our demo to them, and we're seeing in person the reaction from their disposition, the tone of their voice, you know, and you can get into deeper conversations because you're right there. The confidence, I was looking for confidence in the marketplace, right? Versus spending, I could spend two years testing and talking one-on-one to the sales and things of that nature to get to this confidence level that we've gotten to in the last four months with what we built. So we came back from that conference and then we went to another one right after the next week called Shop Talk where we're also doing the same thing with our industry, our industry customer base and our confidence levels at 100% based upon those reactions from retailers, from brands, from agencies to understand that we are solving a real painful problem for the market. Like everyone is like, oh, we've wanted something like that or let's discuss in further detail how we can collaborate and work together. So that was the number one thing I got back.

Other than that, we did sign up some beta users. We did do your typical sales follow-ups and things of that nature. So we do have activation going on that some of those things could lead in some pretty substantial opportunities for us.

Yeah, what great exposure. And what I'm seeing from both of your companies and from both of you personality-wise is that you put a lot of emphasis in that empathy component and understanding your customer and trying to pivot. And while we're in that topic, can you talk a little bit about the importance of pivoting? And I think for entrepreneurs, sometimes the idea is so large and so strong, but how important is it to pivot? And along those lines, what are some challenges that you have faced in your journey?

Sure, I mean, you have to pivot. There's no option, but it's getting difficult nowadays because I always say, because you have to pivot according to the customer need. But today, the only thing which is changing faster than technology is customer expectations. So they change at such a rapid pace that matching them is actually very, very difficult. So you have to have a pivot strategy. You cannot actually pivot according to the need of the consumer because sometimes they also don't realize what they need. So you have to have a strategy to balance between offering them what they want versus offering them what they need. So that is a very important strategy in our companies. We actually call it a pivot strategy. So we plan it very carefully and say, we release in short bursts right in the balance of between what they need and what they want.

Yes, very, very true. What about you, Eric?

Yeah, I think that it's an interesting thing, like you're saying. I feel like that there's like this subconscious intuitive part to it as well, right? To where the entrepreneur just understands that you're basically, if you're an entrepreneur, you're choosing a life full of volatility. And you're honestly, in business, there's only problems. They're either good or bad, but they're all problems, right? It's all painful. You only hope for the good ones. And the good ones are pivoting good problems, right? So long as you don't wait too long and then they become bad problems. So that's why you do pivot in business.

And I think that when we, at the genesis of Ad Fury, we made a really good foundational decision that allows us to stay dynamic as we go along. And that decision was, we don't want to be an AI large language model company, right? We want to be an orchestrator of these LLMs that are out there. I'm in no way trying to build a company that's gonna be competitive to any kind of gen AI tool that exists or might become in existence. It is at such a volatile state. Like we see, I mean, our AI architect, and I'm sure that you've experienced this too, but we're constantly looking at it. Like there's news about new AI releases and new features rolling out literally twice, three times a day. And it's hard enough just to read all the articles.

But what we do is, is that we're building, we basically build a middleware to where now our customers can depend on us validating the best in class gen AI tools that are in the market and pipe those in and make sure that they're working well in compliance, and that they're not hallucinating all over the place, and they're not just some sort of fad and trend. We can do that. And that's a superior amount of value that we can deliver to the market and our client base. And so we actually prevent them from having to pivot so much. They can subscribe one place and they get it there. But that decision a long time ago to basically build such a dynamic workflow orchestration with all these AI tools, it allows us to not worry so much about some massive impact happeningto our system.

Very smart. While you talk about foundation and the importance of foundation, I heard an entrepreneur once say, "I am in the business of making you feel comfortable." And he was in the HVAC business, you know, heating and cooling.

If I were to ask you that question, what are you in the business of? Well, like I said in the beginning, we are here in the business of addressing the consumer needs in the shortest time.

What about you, Eric?

Yeah, we're in the business of reducing stress. I really think at the end of the day. And whether that stress is coming from workload or from lack of return on investment, it's all stress. And it's the hard one to measure. But my goal is, is that our users can feel good about their progress for the day.

Thank you. For our entrepreneurs that are listening, what are some resources in the state of Arkansas that have benefited your business and that you would encourage other entrepreneurs to seek? And it can be anything really. And feel free to add any workforce components as well, anything that has helped you grow your business.

Sure, I think for us, I think it was both public and private help. Definitely we got here. So on the public side, I think we took definitely investments from ADC, the Match program. We also took from ADFA. I think probably I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't know about ADFA. I think you really need to look up ADFA because that is a funding source which is very, very invaluable for entrepreneurs. And there are, I mean, again, you have the tax credits. Hardly I think three or four states give those tax credits anymore now. So I think those tax credits, again, those are 33% tax credits for your investors. I think investors would probably invest only for the tax credits. So entrepreneurs maybe actually use that as an advantage for them. But I think those are the three we actually used.

On the private side, you have institutes like The Venture Center, Startup Junkie, The Conductor. So I'll say because if you go to the Valley or the East Coast, there are also accelerators, right? You have the Y Combinators, you have the Tech Stars and all that stuff. But I think accessing them is very hard. I mean, even going to a mentor is very, very hard for you. But here you can just walk in, talk to a mentor. If you are stuck or you have a block on something, you can actually talk to them, get used to it. So right to Northwest, to the central Arkansas, even you have the East, you have all these institutes, great institutions that you can take advantage of. So in short, both the public and the private side, it's a great balance for entrepreneurs to actually thrive.

Thank you. Thank you, Uday. Eric, what about you?

You know, I think it's interesting because Uday's perspective on this, like from maybe not, you know, growing up or starting in Arkansas, like you actually look for more resources, like you're studying and you're trying to find those. Like for myself, we didn't, it was very much passive, right? We were like, it was kind of second nature. I don't appreciate maybe what Uday can see that our state provides and a lot of times. And that might be the case for a lot of kind of local entrepreneurs that maybe start in our state. And so it enlightens me to look further, right? Like, I mean, just take a little practice and look at it.

You know, but I do remember like we hit, there was an apprentice program that through the state of Arkansas that we took advantage of back at White Spider for development software. That was fantastic. It was one of the better experiences that I've seen of where, you know, there's subsidizing for their education and their mentorship through classes. But they're also working with us, getting real world experience. And it was extremely successful for our company. And I think it was accessible for the candidates that were involved in that. It just worked all the way around. And I would definitely encourage folks to look into that.

You know, we've also worked with technology and business development centers, you know, at the University of Arkansas and others that are, you know, part of state funded programs that are incredible amount of wealth of information and great people that will actually spend time as much time as you'll commit. They'll spend the time to help you think through business planning and forecasting and things of that nature. So that's been a help in the past, you know, and I would just go again like our, you know, there's I haven't experienced much friction to start up a business, right, and to start moving forward. There's not, you know, the legislation is not does not prevent one from moving forward quickly. Whereas I could say I wouldn't call them out, but other states within our great nation that might have more limitations and restrictions and hoops and hurdles to jump through. You know, I think it's very entrepreneurial friendly here, and it's comfortable, and I think that there's, you know, like I mentioned before on the private side, the ability to go to market in areas that are already, you know, have some maturity, you know, you're able to do that here. Yes, and to your point, I'd like to put in a plug for our statewide technology commercialization program, Arise, which stands for Arkansas Innovators, Startups, and Entrepreneurs, which is a program completely free, and, you know, a lot of the things that you have mentioned, like the EITC program and others, Arise can point you into that direction and give you guidance based on your business and based on your industry. So that is a very good resource, just a reminder of Arise for those that are listening.

We're getting ready to wrap up, and I would love to hear from you if your younger self, is there an advice that you would give to your younger self as you are thinking about launching your business, where you're locating it, or, you know, what are some things that you would think of in terms of advice for your younger self? Yeah, just two for me, because I've been thinking about this a lot the last few weeks, is spend time with your family, don't work 24-7. You can be smarter than that. Yeah, so very, very good reminder of priorities. Thank you.

Yeah, for me, if I could talk to my younger self, I'd be like, one thing I'd say is work out, always be training your body, right? Like, I think that as you get older, the more you realize, like, oh, wait a minute, you know, how impactful and how connected your body really is to your brain power and to your ability to have longevity, to work hard, to work smart, to stay focused, all that type of stuff. You know, I would just let myself know that and take it a little bit more serious, right? I mean, I think that I've put a lot of effort in learning, accelerating, you know, all those types of things and relationships and networks, but I never really did put so much emphasis on the physical part of it, which, like, we sit behind computers and then, you know, a decade later, your neck hurts, right? But I mean, if you would have worked out a little bit along the way, you may not have as much neck pain. I mean, because we do have physically demanding jobs or just passively physically demanding. Yes. You know, and so don't take that for granted and treat yourself well on that standpoint.

I think those are such good reminders and this is the importance of mentorship, you know, for entrepreneurs to discuss these common issues and for us as well. Like you said, a decade goes by quickly and those little moments that you can get out after lunch and do a 10-minute walk or a 20-minute walk, you know, it makes a significant impact. It's just those small gradual changes.

Well, thank you both so much. It's been a pleasure to be with you and ask you all these questions. You have been so gracious in answering all of them. Something that we do at the end of every podcast is that we have these rapid fire questions and so I want to start with Uday and so it's just the first thing that comes to your mind and then I'll jump to Eric.

So, Uday, what is your favorite place to eat in Arkansas?

Oh, Threefold.

Threefold?

Eric?

Man, I like, there's a place called Toot Baroot here in Northwest Arkansas. It's fantastic.

What do they serve there?

It's Lebanese food. It's absolutely unbelievable. I love it. Sounds delicious.

Uday, what is your favorite place to visit in Arkansas?

Oh, that's a tough question because there's a lot of places. I think I'll go to Mount Magazine.

Mount Magazine, beautiful place.

Eric?

I love the King's River and the Buffalo.

Oh, yes, beautiful too.

Well, I have you still here, Eric. Who is an inspiring Arkansas business leader for you?

There's a lot of them. I mean, Cameron Smith was a big one of mine. He's unfortunately passed. I mean, you know, Sam Walton, J.B. Hunt, you know, all of those folks are very inspiring to me. Thank you.

Uday?

Yeah, I think it might be a cliche answer, but I think Sam Walton. The more I know about him, the more I read about him, I think getting more inspired and inspired because making everything accessible is what it is. So when we saw 101 Plus, I was reading his book, I said, okay, we need to make health care and preventive health care accessible.

Uday, what is an impactful book for you or a book that you're reading or one that you recommend reading?

I think Outlive by Peter Attia. I think everybody has to read in this generation, as simple as that.Thank you. I'm going to write it down. What about you, Eric? There's a book titled American Entrepreneur. It's not the one by the Duck Dynasty. Entrepreneur. It's not the one by the Duck Dynasty person, but you look for it. It's a little bit of an older book, but it goes through entrepreneurism and many, many different stories of those before us, and it really helps to understand what entrepreneurism is really about. Thank you. Thank you.

They both will be on my reading list for sure.

Our guests today on the Arkansas Inc. podcast have been Uday Akharaju, CEO of Bond AI, which now I know what Bond stands for, really the true meaning behind that word in your company, and Eric Howerton, co-founder and chief growth officer at AdFury.ai. Uday and Eric, thank you so much for spending time with me today talking about the tech industry in Arkansas, starting your businesses, and the AI industry.

You've been listening to the Arkansas Inc. Podcast. I'm Esperanza Massana Crane, director of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development Division for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. You can subscribe to the Arkansas Inc. podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast apps.

For more information about the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and to sign up for the AEDC monthly newsletter, visit arkansasedc.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and YouTube. As always, thanks for listening.