AI, Entrepreneurship and Building Better Business Software | James Edgell on Redesign Your Life Today

00:00 What did that experience teach you about taking a complex technological idea and

00:06 making it simple enough for millions of ordinary people to use?

00:11 Making something easy to use and simple is really not easy and simple. I won't

00:17 expose the project or the client, but they told me the project had failed

00:22 already twice. The old expression of garbage in garbage out still applies with AI. if you've got to ask the right

00:31 questions.

00:37 Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Redesign Your Life Today. The

00:45 podcast where we explore the people, ideas and transformations that challenge

00:51 us to think differently, embrace change and intentionally create the next

00:58 chapter of our lives. And today we are entering a world that is changing almost

01:05 faster than we can comprehend. Artificial intelligence.

01:10 But this conversation isn't just about technology. It's about reinvention,

01:16 entrepreneurship, leadership, and a fascinating question. what becomes

01:21 possible when the distance between an idea and actually building it begins to

01:28 disappear. So today I've got the immense honor and privilege to have a very

01:34 special guest with us and my guest is James Edgell. James has experienced

01:42 technology from almost every angle. He has worked with major organizations

01:48 including IBM, Deloitte and McDonald's where his experience including major

01:55 digital initiatives such as the McDonald's mobile app and in restaurant

02:01 ordering kiosks deployed across thousands of locations. He has also

02:06 built technology companies and platforms from the ground up, including a national

02:12 platform that grew to more than 150,000 users.

02:17 Today, James is the founder of SoftEXIT where he's working on an ambitious idea,

02:25 an AI enabled platform designed to transform natural language business requirements into databases,

02:33 forms, dashboards, reports beyond the uh and complete business applications. So

02:41 today I want to go beyond the AI hype and discover what James has learned

02:47 about innovation, failure, leadership, entrepreneurship,

02:53 and what AI could mean for the future of this business.

02:59 So again, James, a very warm welcome to the program.

03:05 Thank you, Daniel. Uh thank you for having me. Well, it's a pleasure to have you uh James uh on this program and u

03:14 so James this was like a short introduction you know but for our

03:20 viewers you know who are business owners entrepreneurs over 40 very often yeah

03:26 it's people like successful from the outside but sometimes as well we're looking sense of purpose and interested

03:32 about changes right and for people who want to know more about you. My first

03:39 question is very simple. Who is James? And the second part of the

03:46 question will be what lets him to do what he's doing today.

03:54 So I'm a I'm a tech guy. I've always been a tech guy. I started my career playing around with tech and uh learned

04:02 you know shortly after that people pay people to do this kind of work because it was just kind of a hobby and uh you

04:09 know then went to school and uh got my credentials and and wow what a career uh

04:17 love it uh love tech there's a saying that if you love what you do you don't work a day in your life and I believe

04:24 I've been following that uh quite well I really like doing technical stuff and a

04:30 natural progression is I eventually got into management where I could make a bigger impact on you know people's

04:36 careers who work for me and the world in general right uh you mentioned McDonald's that's kind of cool it was uh

04:44 something I see every day when I walk into a McDonald's and say wow I was part of that that's so so essentially what

04:53 led me to what I'm doing now is you know I've worked with a lot of different companies and you know from startups to

05:00 big companies and I kind of developed this idea of like why can't I bring you

05:07 know enterprise level software to smaller companies so that they can compete and especially with the advent

05:13 of AI uh there is really no no boundaries anymore I mean they can do

05:19 incredible things at a small scale to compete with large companies and I want

05:24 to you know try and transform form those smaller companies to be able to build,

05:29 you know, enterprise software that they could benefit from with an affordable price and make it very simple. So, it's

05:38 not extremely complex. Even if they try to build something with AI, there's still a lot of complexities

05:43 that come with it, right? There's hosting and security and uptime and things like that.

05:49 uh I wanted to build something that they could focus on their business but still have the benefits of these type of

05:55 enterprise level applications. So that's what led me here.

06:00 Wow. Beautiful. Thank you so much for for sharing James. And obviously you had

06:05 an extraordinary journey from IBM Deloitte and McDonald's to startups, social

06:11 networks and now SoftEXIT. And I'm interested in in in the person. gap

06:18 behind this resume. Was there a particular moment when you

06:23 realized that working inside major organizations was no longer enough and that you needed

06:30 to build something on your own? And what did the transition teach you about

06:37 yourself and that you would never have learned by

06:43 staying into the big corporate world? Well, I think it it wasn't a uh a fight

06:51 back to the corporate world. I I really enjoyed my time working for all those companies. I learned a lot.

06:57 Uh but it's a I don't know the it's a terrible phrase, master and servant kind

07:03 of world, right? And and you know, I I treated my employers like they were clients. And this is the customer

07:10 service that I learned from Deloitte that you make it work for the client, right? And

07:16 I I think I always treated my employers like they were a client. And I would

07:21 build what they need, what they wanted. And you know, my my needs and wants were

07:27 second, you know, uh place to to my clients, right? I I needed to serve them. So going on my own, I became kind

07:34 of my own client and uh I was able to build things that were important to me

07:40 and I thought could service people in the greater in the greater world, right?

07:46 So now I get to put my money where my mouth is and uh kind of build stuff. Uh

07:51 you know, I guess we all still have clients, right? Now I have other clients to serve. their external clients

07:58 and I need to make them happy, but I can kind of set the stage uh in a way that I

08:04 couldn't while working with a large corporation. Wow. Absolutely. Thanks for that. And uh

08:12 obviously working I mean being in charge of the company

08:18 I guess decisions can be quicker and obviously you are accountable for everything, aren't you?

08:25 Yes, that's true. It's it's like uh trapeze without a net. It's [laughter]

08:31 now now every decision I make, you know, is it's all on me. And uh if it's a poor

08:37 decision, then I have to learn how to deal with that and turn it around. Um I

08:43 don't have is you know I the input is different, right? when when you're at a top uh you have to weigh the pros and

08:51 cons of the inputs you're getting, but ultimately it's your responsibility to make the decision and you're held

08:56 accountable 100%. Not that that's any different than working for a corporation, but it seems a little more

09:04 less safe, right? It's it it really comes down to what I decide and is it

09:11 going to work and the results are all held on me. So, but then again, that's

09:18 the same as working for a corporation. So, but it just seems a little less safe

09:24 when you're at the top making the final decision. I guess that's the difference. I'm making the final decisions and uh I

09:32 need I I hold myself accountable for it. So, that's new for me. So,

09:37 wow. I mean, it's very powerful and but I suppose as well, of course, there's an element of risk, but it's as well very

09:44 rewarding, isn't it? you know, when you you manage to pull something, you know, from, you know, starting from scratch

09:50 and it's it's really your work and your obviously your team's work as well.

09:56 Yes, absolutely. Um, you know, I've always, you know, I've worked for large corporations. We started from scratch,

10:02 right? So, I'm used to that. It's the rewarding part is Yeah, true. I get to

10:08 reap the rewards. And, uh, let's hope that's the case. That would be a a nice nice problem to have, right? to

10:15 experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. And now let's talk about a company everybody knows. I

10:23 mean, most of us have walked into a McDonald's and used an ordering kiosk

10:28 without thinking about the enormous technology infrastructure behind that

10:33 seemingly simple experience. So you were involved yourself with major digital

10:38 initiatives including the mobile app and kiosks that were ultimately deployed

10:44 across thousands or perhaps you'll tell us tens of thousands of locations.

10:49 So what did that experience teach you about taking a complex technological

10:54 idea and making it simple enough for millions of ordinary people to use? And

11:01 what can entrepreneurs learn from that about creating products people actually

11:06 want rather than products technologists simply think are impressive?

11:14 So yes, making something easy to use and simple is really not easy and simple. It

11:20 takes a a lot of iterative uh approaches. It

11:26 takes focus groups. It takes a lot of input, observation on how it's being used. So, it doesn't it's not an

11:32 overnight success. There's a lot of effort that goes into it. And yeah, it's a lot of locations. It's, you know, uh

11:40 McDonald's is in 15,000 locations in North America and worldwide 30 30,000

11:47 that and so it's got to work, right? You got to have quality. You got to have good testers. and that uh we did a lot

11:55 of we did a lot of quality assurance but as as far as the user experience goes

12:00 yeah that's that's the challenge right how do we make it simple what looks obvious to us and as you work with

12:07 something day in and day out you become very familiar with it and how it operates and then you put it in front of somebody who's never seen it before or

12:14 may even be intimidated by the technology and you you learn really fast that hey you know I thought this was

12:21 easy and it's not right. People are getting stuck and then you could walk up and explain to them, hey, all you have

12:27 to do is hit this button, right? But you're not going to be there. So, you have to make it so that it is

12:35 frictionless, that somebody can use it, they can experience it. And then the

12:40 kiosk is really only one half of it. Everyone sees the kiosk. What they don't see is the kiosk drives operations

12:48 behind the counter. It tells the cook which what what things to start cooking,

12:53 right? How to make it custom because you're you're you can customize in the kiosk and then that all flows through

13:01 the entire system. The McDonald's back end, when I say backend, I'm talking about just the cooking area.

13:07 It's a really complex operation. There's several rolls. People have rolls and they have these things called bump bars.

13:13 I think you'll see people hit them. Uh the a meal goes through a whole process. First, it starts with the cook.

13:20 Then he's cooking something and then they time things, right? If you have multiple orders, and you know, one

13:26 particular meal takes longer to cook than the other. The system has to determine what gets started first so

13:33 that the meal is all done at the same time. So, if you order something like the number two and I order a custom

13:40 sandwich, right, uh the custom one needs to be started first so that they are all

13:45 timed and done at the same time so that they're all warm so when we provide the order to the family that all of their

13:52 items are equally as hot. I mean, we don't always succeed, right? But most of

13:57 the time, uh they they have and it's a complex operation. And I didn't realize

14:02 how complex it was until I started there. Well, I can show you one story. It's really interesting what McDonald's

14:08 does. They have a a thing called I I think it's called experience day. And they

14:16 don't want the executives to become so far away from the restaurants that they

14:21 they don't real you they start to lose focus on how challenging it is to run a daily operation like that. And so they

14:28 make every executive go into the store and make food and do the job and

14:34 experience it firsthand. And let me tell you that was probably the most enlightening day of my life cuz you know

14:41 at that point I'm a a high-end executive, right? I it's been a long time since I've done, you know, an

14:48 entry- levelvel type of job. And then to be put in the restaurant and starting to

14:53 cook fries and and do all that and I realized, wow, this is way more challenging than I thought.

14:59 And then they put you in the drive drive-thru. And man, let me tell you, I'll never

15:05 complain about waiting in a drive-thru again because the amount of people that come through, it's so fast that I feel

15:13 it's like I keep handing food to the same person that that that's not another new person and you only have like, you

15:19 know, literally minutes to put an order together and get it right and put it in the hands of somebody who's hungry and

15:25 who's impatient and they they expect everything to be perfect. And if you get make one mistake, you're you're creating

15:32 friction for their day and they get upset. And wow, you experience it real time. And I'm telling you, I have such

15:40 appreciation for people who do that kind of work. And you know, people look

15:45 sometimes they look down on somebody in that position. They think it's a simple job and it really is not. It's very

15:51 challenging. [snorts] I wouldn't have known that if I had not been shoved into the position to

15:58 actually do it. And the perception of it being easy is incorrect.

16:04 Absolutely. And I suppose it brings you some kind of humility after you've spent some time there. I remember when I think

16:11 Donald Trump once he was in a McDonald's if I'm correct [snorts] cooking or I

16:16 don't know what he was doing there but so uh and and actually I have a question because obviously you know McDonald's is

16:24 present all over the world people have different habits right different does it

16:29 reflect as well on the technology are the changes you know depending on the part of the world or is it exactly the

16:35 same infrastructure which is in place so oh Well, I'll tell you how complex it

16:41 is that. So, there are, let's just take the United States alone. Yeah.

16:46 15,000 restaurants and they serve basically the same food. We're not talking about different countries that

16:52 have different food offerings and, you know, for their cultures, right? Just take the United States, 15,000

16:58 restaurants. Yeah. We had a system that we configured the restaurants. And so the logical

17:04 assumption is maybe there's two or three different types of configurations cuz they're all selling the same food. Well,

17:10 I learned really quickly this is not accurate at all that 15,000 restaurants

17:15 have I the next assumption is 15,000 configurations.

17:20 That's not true either because they're all configured differently. If you walk into a McDonald's at an airport, it's

17:27 much more compact and they cook things differently. They serve things differently. They, you know, they have,

17:34 you know, maybe three three cash registers and then one kiosk on on the outside because they have limited space.

17:40 So, you have to configure for all that. Then each restaurant could be different.

17:45 It could be a high volume restaurant which has three different uh cooking

17:51 stations. The whole, you know, the whole restaurant from the airport could be duplicated times three. So you have to

17:57 have all of that configured into the system into the registers so it knows where to route the meals. That same

18:04 restaurant could have two working stations in the slower time. So you have

18:09 to configure for those. Uh you can have a restaurant that is working 24 hours

18:16 and it needs to be configured three different ways throughout the day. So can you imagine that's 15,000

18:22 restaurants times three configurations per day. So you're talking, you know, 45,000 different configurations.

18:30 Wow. And it runs in real time. This this this can happen. Some restaurants can be reconfigured four different ways

18:37 throughout the day. It can be configured differently for the weekends because you

18:42 have different volumes and you have to adjust for it. So and then on top of that you have, you know, with each

18:49 configuration is different employment levels, right? you're not going to employ 20 people in the day um or or in

18:57 the evening when you have low volume, but in the day you'll have 20 people. So, you have to have them checked in so

19:02 that they're there to perform those duties, right? So, you have a meal cooker, right? You have a runner who

19:08 grabs the food and puts it in the bag. You've got the person at the window who hands the right meal to the right car

19:15 that's coming up. It's a complex operation.

19:20 So, when I watched the movie with Kevin Spacy where he wanted this job to be in

19:26 the drive-thru with the easiest job in the world because he needed that uh for the period in his life. I said, "This is

19:33 a total misrepresentation of what that job really is. It's high

19:38 pressure and it takes a lot of focus." And then you got to really appreciate

19:43 that these individuals are working in such a complex operation for minimum

19:48 wage. And yeah, you gotta you got to really, you know,

19:54 look at them differently than at least when I started McDonald's, I had a different perception of what it what it

20:00 took to do that job. And then after I left, I was exhausted. I came home and

20:05 told my wife, I said, you know, when I worked in the restaurant, I said, I've never worked so hard in my life, and

20:11 [laughter] they're not making a lot of money to work that hard. So, I have a deep appreciation for what they do.

20:20 Well, thank you for sharing this. I mean, for everybody listening, just, you know, next time you go to a McDonald's,

20:26 think right twice. And um James, you've built, you've worked with

20:33 all kinds of companies, large one, startups, and sometimes you had to

20:39 experience recovering troubled technology projects, I guess, right? And

20:45 obviously entrepreneurs, we hear them talking about successes,

20:50 but some of our greatest lessons come from the moments when things don't go

20:56 according to plan. So can you take us into perhaps one of the most difficult

21:02 moments of your entrepreneurial or leadership journey?

21:07 What went wrong? How did you respond? And what did your experience

21:13 teach about resilience, leadership, and yourself?

21:18 So, so yeah, that's that's always an interesting challenge. Um, most of my projects have done very well, and I I

21:25 follow him closely. I'm pretty hands-on and very technical, so I haven't had trouble with my project so much, but I

21:32 have inherited projects that have been in a terrible state. And it seems

21:38 it seems like anywhere I start new that's what I'm facing because there

21:43 usually it's a lot of frustration. Um I remember I came into Deloitte I won't ex

21:48 expose the project or the client but they told me the project had failed

21:54 already twice and they couldn't they couldn't seem to get it on track that I had to turn this

21:59 around and then you know basically if I didn't turn it around I you know I got the impression that I probably wouldn't

22:06 have lasted much longer at Deloitte. So interesting that you know it's like I

22:11 you know can I can I get a project that you know I can start from scratch so it's not in this state but it seems to

22:17 me wherever I go transition to a new place that projects are in these states and I think you know there's several

22:23 reasons in how they get there right inexperienced managers overcommit and then they you know they they want to

22:30 please and they say yes to everything and then they get deep involved into it and then they find out that they're

22:37 they're in over their head, right? And they've made so many promises and they

22:42 or they got forced into making a promise because of pressure. Um my approach is I

22:48 usually try to identify uh the capacity of the team and

22:55 the challenges that they have and basically I I start providing uh a process to evaluate where they are where

23:04 they need to get and then basically create a gap analysis and that process

23:10 is it doesn't need to take very long. These are things I learned from Motorola. they were a CMM level 5

23:16 organization and identifying you know what your capacity is is probably one of

23:22 the most important things with what your team is capable of doing. So if you have

23:29 overcommitments and you don't have enough capacity in your team there's a couple of ways you can solve these

23:34 problems. You can set expectations by rep prioritizing, you know, the most

23:40 important things first and start to develop a plan that's a phased release.

23:45 Um, and that's that's usually, you know, kind of a a standard way of doing things. Or if you got a you're working

23:53 for a company that has deep pockets, right? And I have experienced this uh firsthand where they would just drop a

23:59 big bag of cash on your desk and say, "Here's all the money. Go solve the problem." Right? Well, that's a whole

24:04 new different approach. Uh, so you don't have a capacity problem anymore when you

24:09 when you get a big bag of cash. You've got now you've got a planning problem and you've got a hiring problem. You've

24:15 got to bring on those resources. You got to identify them. You got to interview them, pick the right ones, and then you

24:21 got to, you know, basically get them up to speed and then you create a plan that you can deliver. And so, you know, each

24:28 each time I've approached a travel project, it's usually a different

24:34 approach and it it comes down to variables of like time, money, and scope, right? And these are the old

24:40 three addages of the PMI uh trainings that you you can you can play with a

24:46 couple of those. Um, [snorts] you know, they can't all be fixed. you know, one of them has to be variable and then

24:53 whatever one is variable kind of dictates the other levers that you can pull. So if you don't have any more

24:58 money then you have to worry about scope right and then priority. If you have lots of money then well that makes

25:05 things you know easy in one way and more challenging in another right you you you have to hire more resources you have to

25:11 train them you have to identify them and then make a plan that way. So essentially troubled projects is it it

25:20 really comes down to you know what available resources do you have and then you start working the priority and I

25:27 found that no two projects are alike. You have to approach them dynamically. You can't approach them with a canned

25:33 formula and say hey I can do this because I've done this this way at other

25:38 places. If you're really on top of things, it's usually unique every single

25:44 time and you need to, you know, step up to the challenges that are in front of you.

25:49 Thank you so much for yeah explaining this because obviously I can imagine if

25:55 company already spend a huge amount of money on a project. It's like there's this fear of like you know will all this

26:02 be for nothing. So they would ask you can you work with this somehow and try

26:07 to fix it? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not big on scrapping and starting over just because of that. Most

26:15 companies have made a substantial investment in something. There are ways to look at what you have, the assets

26:21 that you have, and clean it up. Sometimes, sometimes it's just simply a better UI, uh, that you have, the

26:28 processes in the background, they work. Maybe it's messy code, but it works, right? And, and I think improving a UI can help

26:35 alleviate some of the issues. Maybe it's uh optimization, right? You have a performance problem. So, there are tools

26:42 that are out there that you can run. They can profile against the database and point you in the right direction.

26:49 So, it it it doesn't always have to be rewrite from scratch. Um I've been given

26:55 directives, scrap this, rewrite it, and it's like, okay, well, why don't we look

27:01 at what we have first? You know, because I'm not really big on scrapping everything because of course. Mhm. It it could be a perception

27:08 thing. Uh I've seen that where companies had this perception that they had a very

27:14 bad system when 80% of it was very usable. It it just required some uh

27:20 small improvements in areas. So I I think yeah you're right. It's like yeah

27:26 I've invested a lot of money and it's usually a lot of money. Software development especially custom is very

27:32 costly. All the engineers are expensive and then you you multiply that by the engineer

27:38 and yeah it's it's very expensive. That's one of the reasons why uh you

27:44 know we built SoftEXIT studio is we built a system where you know you don't

27:50 have to make those large investments anymore. You can use the building blocks that are available to you. And I think,

27:56 you know, as AI is becomes more prominent, I think we're gonna all reap the benefits of being able to build with

28:05 modules so that they don't have to, you know, scrap everything.

28:10 Well, and actually, you know, when you mentioned that, this was my next question, James, speaking about soft

28:18 exit. So, imagine I'm an entrepreneur with absolute no technical background.

28:24 I'm sure it rings a bell, right? Yes. Yeah. You know what? Which actually

28:30 would be my case, right? I come to SoftEXIT and I've got a business problem and

28:36 I can describe it, you know, and I say normal language what I need, what

28:43 happens next. I'd like you to take us through the journey and explain why you

28:48 believe this could fundamentally change who gets to build software.

28:55 So I think you know a lot of businesses are not in the business of building software. Um one one of my favorite

29:01 television commercials was uh they showed a boardroom and you know the guy

29:07 is asking okay what's up the servers down you know is email going out and he has all these technical questions

29:14 and the board is like yeah no we don't have those problems anymore and then they push a shirt in front of him and

29:19 he's like what's this? Mhm. and he says it's a shirt. It's what we sell. It's a So, it's it's companies,

29:28 you know, that have been so enveloped in technology and technological challenges that they can't even run or recognize

29:35 their own business that I was very impressed with. Uh I know that the company selling that

29:40 solution was selling a very very expensive solution. So, which which brings me to, you know, the the type of

29:48 companies that we're trying to serve are the smaller companies that don't have the strong technical background and want

29:55 to be able to run their business efficiently and not on spreadsheets or pen and paper. And that's the target

30:03 audience that that we're looking for. We want to be able to offer a system that

30:09 they don't have to become that technological, you know, executive. They don't have to hire a CTO, a chief technical officer or

30:18 or have a complete technical staff and developers. They they want us, they can't afford, you know, it's not that

30:23 they can't afford, they can't justify having all that for their type of business. And I think that that's where

30:30 we come in. We can offer a system that's so easy to use that you can you don't

30:36 have to understand how databases work. You don't have to understand the parent child relationship of tables and things

30:42 like that. Essentially, our system offers it that here's a form you fill

30:48 out and then there's a folder that has you know that could have sub forms. So

30:53 this is the really for database experts. Yeah, that's the parent child relationship but they don't need to see that. They don't need to understand what

31:00 is the key uh of the parent, what's the foreign key uh relationship. None of

31:06 that is is necessary to understand to use SoftEXIT. Um the other thing is we

31:13 offer pre-anned apps that are preconfigured ready to go. So we we'll have a CRM system, the customer relation

31:20 management package that everyone needs. We'll have, you know, inventory. We'll have risk management. We'll have all,

31:26 you know, customer tracking of issues. Things like that are all preconfigured that you can immediately install. And

31:33 then you can customize those so they're not rigid. So that if you do business

31:40 differently, and we find that many businesses that do the same thing all do it differently, which is really amazing.

31:47 So, we offer the ability to take those apps and completely customize them, uh,

31:52 completely change them out, remove features, add features, and then [clears throat] if that doesn't suit

31:59 your needs, and you don't want to roll up your sleeves and understand, you know, what data, what data collections you need, we

32:07 have an AI architect that's built into this platform that you just simply describe what your challenge is. you

32:13 say, "I need an inventory system and I need to track POS and suppliers and know

32:18 uh when people take things out. If we were at zero inventory, I needed to print, you know, a report that will show

32:26 me what I need to reorder this week so that I'm not out of stock uh by the end

32:32 of the month and then I can't service my customers." You basically describe all that into the AI agent and it configures

32:39 the application to build that all out for you with the data entry screens and the lists and the dashboards and all

32:46 that. But the difference between what we do and what AI application generation

32:53 systems do is we're not generating an application with new bugs and new things

32:58 to test, right? It's configuring SoftEXIT Studio that's already stable

33:05 and already has a standard data entry system and standard dashboards. It's

33:10 configuring it all for you. And so you're not getting an unsafe application

33:15 that you have to worry about or a application that isn't quite stable that you can't trust 24 by7. You're getting

33:23 it. It's basically like there's a programmer with you who builds this all out for you

33:28 and then you can just run it. It's so in other words, if I was going to put this in layman's terms, it's not building you

33:38 a spreadsheet from scratch, a whole new spreadsheet application. It's configuring the spreadsheet for you kind

33:44 of it works like that. Does that make sense? Of course. Absolutely. It's really fully

33:51 customized. So basically you're Yeah. So yeah, it makes full sense James and

33:57 actually when we talk about AI I mean obviously it's you know AI evolves uh

34:04 exponentially. So how do you see AI moving forward you know in the five five

34:10 next five years 10 years how is it going to impact your business and your clients

34:16 businesses? I it it'll definitely be an impact. I

34:22 mean, it it we're moving so fast uh that it's it's it's limited to our

34:27 imaginations. It's it I'm so blown away by some of the things it can kind of can

34:33 accomplish. Sometimes I ask it to to build something that I think, well, it's not going to be able to do this uh that

34:39 fast. It's going to take several iterations. And then all of a sudden, you know, I have something I'm like pretty impressed

34:45 with because I it's it's pretty amazing. Uh I think building software is just

34:53 going to become natural for it. But where I see AI is becoming the great

34:59 tool of the future is, you know, it's kind of like uh for me it's a it's a

35:06 co-founder without having to actually have a co-founder. And

35:11 what's a perfect co-founder is somebody who has skills that you do not. And then you work together. And this co-founder

35:19 is virtual for me and they have lots of skills in areas that I don't have. And I

35:24 can ask it a lot of different questions and it gives me a different perspective. And I think that's where it's going to

35:31 really start influencing how businesses operate that they're going to be making

35:36 more sound decisions on fact rather than gut. And I think that a lot of

35:42 co-founders will give you their opinion based upon their experience. And all of our experience is limited to what we've

35:50 experienced. Whereas AI is been trained on virtually everything. So it can

35:57 really make very positive impacts on businesses going forward because they're

36:03 going to be making decisions based upon more fact than gut. And I I think that's

36:08 going to have a profound effect for everyone who not only the businesses but the the people that they serve are going

36:15 to benefit from better informed decisions. I I think that's that's

36:21 probably going to be the largest impact of AI is informed decisions as opposed

36:26 to, you know, putting your finger to the wind and saying, you know, I think that the world is going to go in this

36:32 direction because of the limited things I've been exposed to.

36:38 Yeah. So informed decision and am I correct in saying James that in order to

36:43 do that you really need to ask the right questions and the prompt you put in AI

36:50 has to be very precise so that afterwards you can really get like the various scenarios and and and and the

36:58 other element which I guess would be very important as well is critical thinking am I correct in saying that

37:06 100% the old expression of garbage in, garbage out still applies with AI if

37:13 you've got to ask the right questions. And so it's really interesting. So you

37:19 could see the impact on the workforce that a lot of entry-level jobs are being

37:24 eliminated because there's not experience in those individuals to be

37:29 asking those right questions that they rely on the mid levels. Um, and then the

37:36 the AI can perform those entry-level jobs. It's having an impact. It's it's really undeniable. I I I think, you

37:43 know, people can debate this whether it's right or wrong. I'm not going to go there, but it's it's definitely having

37:48 an impact. The interesting thing I'm seeing in the workforce is I think the

37:55 more experienced uh resources, companies are letting them go to cut costs. I

38:01 think that is a major mistake. because these are the people who can ask the right questions and have a massive

38:09 impact on the output of AI because they have the they bring the experience and

38:15 they know what to ask and you know for the large part is I think there's a lot

38:21 of people in organizations who don't really understand the experienced responses because they don't have the

38:28 same level of expertise. So they have they can be a little dismissive at times where corporations should hang on to

38:36 these people with both hands because that experience into AI can be an

38:42 absolute powerhouse of informed decision making and informed design and the

38:50 difference between garbage in and garbage out to knowledgeable input

38:55 that's only known by this individual for their particular industry.

39:00 and incredible output from the AI. So I I I think I I I mean that's just my

39:08 opinion. So I've seen experienced people do amazing things with AI and it's

39:14 interesting that I see the experienced people are being let go by these companies and what's the first thing they're doing? Starting their own

39:21 business using AI to compete in a sector that trained them. And these companies

39:27 are creating their worst and most fierce competitors because they're they can be smaller and

39:33 nimble, but they have this experience that these companies have severed from

39:38 their from their own companies. So, I'm seeing this play out in real time. It's it'll be interesting to see where it

39:44 goes. This is this is fascinating. And uh

39:49 James, you know, we talk about skills and I I found out that if I'm correct,

39:57 you are an FAA pilot. Yes. I Yes.

40:02 And you see a while and this is and really I would like to know you know which kind of transferable

40:09 skills do you have you know from being a pilot to running a company.

40:16 So, being a pilot, I I I went to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. It's the finest flight

40:22 university in the world. Um, you know, and they've been around a long time. They were the uh trainers of the World

40:29 War I pilots when they were flying the the old clothcovered aircraft,

40:35 but they they have continued to uh persist. And I I gotta tell you, it's,

40:42 you know, it it's really interesting flying. There's a lot of a lot of humor.

40:48 It's it's kind of like Gallas humor. Like checklists are written in blood that every item on a checklist is

40:54 because somebody died and they said, "You know what? We need to check that." Right? So I say I would say process um

41:02 they're very strict on process because they know the process works that if you

41:07 follow this process you will live and if you don't you may die. So it's it's

41:13 pretty binary in that aspect. Um so I think the discipline of it the other

41:19 thing I learned in you know with the FAA is it's really interesting how they do

41:27 tests. They're not trying to be clever and they're not trying to trick you. They don't give you trick answers. They

41:33 literally publish every single question that would be on a test. There's like 600 questions to get your private

41:39 pilot's license and they give you all the answers. So, there's two ways you

41:45 could pass that test. You could memorize 600 questions and their answers. That's

41:50 brute force. Mhm. And then just because you memorized it, it it it sinks in and you've learned

41:58 every single question from every single angle, you're definitely going to know the material. Okay, that's one way.

42:05 The other way is to learn the principles behind the questions. So you don't have to memorize 600 questions and answers.

42:12 So if you understand the principles of the questions, you can answer the questions without memorization and you

42:18 still walk away knowing the material. So either way, you know, the material, it's

42:24 it it the FAA's approach to knowledge transfer is just absolutely amazing. So

42:29 they cover both ends of the spectrum. Brute force memorization or truly understanding the principles behind

42:35 them. Either way, you have the knowledge that makes you a safe pilot and you

42:41 know, for your own safety as well as the people on the ground that you could fall on. So it that's what I've learned is is

42:49 there are multiple ways to learn something but don't try to be clever. Don't try to trick people. Teach them,

42:56 you know, find a way so that they walk away knowledgeable. So this is the same thing with technology.

43:03 Don't try to trick people. Try to make something un understandable so that they

43:08 can either learn the principles or they memorize it through exposure. So does

43:14 that make sense? Absolutely. First time I've ever been asked to tie uh FAA regulations to software

43:21 development. Well, you see, Justin, thank you very much. It was very insightful. And actually, James, you and me had the

43:28 opportunity to talk and uh I would like you to share your background with our uh

43:36 viewers. So my background your physical background I mean now what

43:42 you shared with me what's that I'm sorry I'm I'm missing the

43:48 remember you see we the the room in which you oh the technical stuff oh yeah so I'm a

43:55 I'm a very technical guy I can yeah I can share with you here I'm a kind of a

44:01 nerd I'm not really a sports guy so much so I'm really into computers

44:07 um been watching some YouTube shows with uh this guy with Action Retro. Uh his name's Sean. He's really into building

44:14 old computers and I love technology. I like I'm very up to date in technology,

44:19 but I can show you uh my room here is this is live. I'm in the studio here.

44:26 So, this is uh you can see I've got a Mandalorian. We I built that with my

44:31 son. He does cosplay and we we do cosplay shows together. And uh I've worn

44:36 that outfit at uh at ComicCons and and uh it's really quite fun. Uh people

44:42 treat you like you're a like a star. It's it's a totally unique experience. My son wears a Mandalorian costume and

44:49 and we go to some of these shows and something we could share together. But the computers that you're seeing here,

44:55 these are older computers like um there's a old Macintosh there uh that I

45:01 rebuilt and got operational. Next to that is an MSI. This is the game. This

45:06 is the the computer that was in war games that uh was very popular. It is uh

45:12 from the 70s. And I built this from the circuits up. This is not an an original

45:19 MSI. This is an ISI replica kit which you literally solder all the resistors

45:25 and circuits in place and build it. And it's got an old original uh wise

45:30 terminal on there. So, and then next to it is an even earlier computer called the Altter, which was the inspiration

45:36 for the MSI. The Altter was the first successful computer ever [snorts] built and released. And man, let me tell you,

45:44 there's lessons to be learned in these things because they're very simple and very basic. Um, the Altter though is a

45:51 little intimidating. You you don't boot it up and then there's the operating system and you start working with it.

45:57 You literally have to write the program from switches into the memory before you

46:02 can even start using it. So they came up with systems where you could read a tape

46:08 reader in and that was the first Microsoft program ever written was Microsoft basic from Bill Gates and the

46:16 IMSI there. Sorry. The uh altter there which is the uh the third one that one

46:23 is uh was the computer that he launched visual or Microsoft basic on and started

46:29 Microsoft. So they would read the tape in and then you could actually start the

46:34 program. That was quite an accomplishment back then. And then that also has an old wise terminal which I

46:41 restored. And I like to work on these old technologies because they're they're fun. They're fun to learn where we came

46:48 from all the way to AI now where I I haven't tried this experiment yet, but I

46:55 I'm I'm going to start doing it when I get some free time is have AI build

47:00 applications for these old original PCs and then it becomes full circle, right?

47:08 This is something that would have taken months, even years to write. I can have

47:13 and that was back then. I could have AI write within 30 seconds an application

47:18 that would run on on these old machines. And I've seen this guy Sean from Action

47:24 Retro do it with a Macintosh. It was pretty cool. He had it write an application and and it it ran and it

47:32 would do things and it would was little effort. And [snorts] those of us who suffered through those days would go,

47:38 "Oh my god, can't even believe that's possible." We're living in the age of

47:43 science fiction. It's it's just amazing. So, that's me. I'm I'm just a tech guy. I love technology. I like new

47:50 technology, the latest leading edge, but I also like to play around with retro stuff because it's very fun and I'm very

47:57 nostalgic for for those kind of things. And, you know, thank you so much for sharing. And I have to say, James, you

48:03 know, when you when you talk about these various devices and the way you build them or rebuild them from scratch, we

48:10 can feel your passion. you know this is like I mean we felt it before but it's it's really uh very nice to hear that

48:16 and uh James says you know I always like to finish you know redesign your life

48:22 today by turning insight into action so imagine there's someone watching us

48:29 right now they've been uh carrying out a business idea for months or perhaps for

48:35 years and they keep thinking oh I'm not tech technical enough I don't have the

48:40 resources is uh I wouldn't even know where to start. So for these people and

48:46 based on all your experience and obviously what you are creating now with SoftEXIT, what are three concrete

48:55 actionable steps that person could take

49:00 now or within the next few days to simply stop thinking about the idea and begin

49:08 turning it into something real? Okay, great. Um I would do this uh one

49:16 start right um first thing I would do is if you and a person in this position

49:23 might not have a co-founder or a partner or something like that turn ChatGPT if

49:28 you never tried ChatGPT now's the time to try it it's it's really easy you can either type in English and and or any

49:36 language for that matter and or you can even hit the button where you can just talk to it like it's a person and and

49:43 turn ChatGPT into your co-founder and have it have it critique your ideas and

49:49 work back and forth and it can even give you ideas based upon your interest.

49:55 Right? This you you can start building this out immediately. Then I would say

50:03 start watching YouTube more on you know basically startups right and you know in

50:09 startups in areas you're interested watch watch as much YouTube as you can that's all I do nowadays I I rarely

50:16 watch TV it's all YouTube it's amazing how much information is out there and how many people are so willing to help

50:24 um the the entrepreneurship community is you know you'd think they'd be ky and

50:29 and not share ideas because they're so worried about somebody stealing an idea. It's the exact opposite. They're so

50:36 willing to help each other. I am just amazed at how many people have given me great ideas and that are so willing to

50:44 to just chat with you and without fee or anything. I mean, it's just amazing that

50:50 they're willing to help out and definitely get involved in these communities. Reach out, you know, even

50:57 even this show is great, right? reaching out and and hearing the stories of other entrepreneurs

51:03 is extremely motivating uh and it it it helps spark ideas.

51:09 And then you know and a selfish plug here is don't get deep in technology.

51:14 Take a look at SoftEXIT Studio because if you don't want to if you want to focus on a business, you know, you want

51:21 to set up a popcorn stand or you want to set up, you know, a shoe store, right?

51:26 Don't get yourself all tangled up in technology. You want to focus on your business, your solution, and your

51:32 clients. You know, take a look at our solution and compare it to others. You can one,

51:37 you can get a much more economical solution because we all need technology, right? Things need to be tracked. You

51:43 need to, you know, if you're successful, you're you're going to have lots of customers. You you need to store that

51:48 somewhere. Don't store it in spreadsheets. You you'll just drive yourself crazy. you lose that spreadsheet or or it will become so

51:56 complicated and you know and you really need to understand

52:02 spreadsheets from a much more technical standpoint if you're going to build a sophisticated company that you know why

52:09 not why not use something that is already designed for that. Um, you know, in the past things like Salesforce and

52:16 Airtable, they're very costly and so that has a tendency to push people in

52:21 the spreadsheet direction. It's no longer the case, right? There's affordable software out there, not only

52:27 mine, but others, right? You know, you know, I'm shamelessly plugging mine because I think it's the easiest to use

52:32 and the most cost effective, but there are a lot of things out there now that can assist you. And then all three of

52:39 that together, right? get started. Um, use ChatGPT as your your co-founder.

52:45 Uh, get engaged with the YouTube community and then start using technology and then make it happen. And

52:52 you don't have to quit your day job. You can start doing this on the side and testing out your business ideas. And if

53:00 you start to get traction, you know, at some point it it's natural that if you're making enough money, it's then it

53:07 makes sense. you need to spend more time with your your new venture than to work

53:12 for somebody else because you you're going to make more money in the long run. If it's not working out, then you

53:18 pivot and you shift and you try something else else out. And I think now

53:24 is a great time for bootstrapping companies. I think I don't think it's a

53:30 good idea anymore to go search for private equity and venture capital because you lose control. you lose that

53:37 vision and because you have to, you know, you have to feed that that partner

53:42 now who's given you money and they want a return on their money and they're making every decision about money as

53:48 opposed to serving your client base. I think bootstrapping can create better

53:54 companies and it could better serve your your customers now. So, I mean that's just my opinion. So, get out there.

54:01 Thank you so much. I mean these are very down to earth if I can say tips you know

54:06 very actionable. Thank you so much and uh James I'm sure a lot of people would want to reach out to you because it's

54:13 been amazing. So what's the best way to reach out to you? two of the best ways

54:18 uh if you want to know about the company uh SoftEXIT sofxit.com

54:25 very simple domain name um I'm on LinkedIn James Edgell I'm easy to find uh

54:31 you can reach out to me there I usually respond to to most inquiries uh I get a

54:37 lot of sales inquiries so I usually don't respond to those uh but if it's a

54:42 direct hey you know hey would like to get your take on this right those are the ones I usually respond to. So,

54:49 LinkedIn is probably the best way to get a hold of me. Well, again, you know, thank you so

54:55 much, James. I mean, it's been again fascinating listening to you. You know, it's uh because we talked about, you

55:02 know, AI technology, but really for me it's a conversation about possibilities

55:07 as well. you know what can be done and what's the best way and how can something be custom made as well and uh

55:16 so and for everyone listening uh today my first

55:22 ask is please reach out to James as you can see he's got huge knowledge and you

55:30 know and enthusiasm for what he's doing and this is really something unique because at the end of the day we can

55:37 have the best technology we want. We're not going to replace the human side. So,

55:44 and this this factor is so important. So, this is my first ask to our viewers

55:51 and uh you know have this conversation with James and see where it leads you. And my second ask is

55:59 if you liked this episode, if you got something out of that, which I'm pretty

56:05 sure you did, please share share this episode with your friends, your family,

56:12 everybody who is who would get something out of that. It's about change. It's

56:17 about AI because sharing is caring.

56:23 Sharing is giving and sharing is loving. So again, James, thank you so much for

56:30 your time. And Daniel, thank you for having me. It's been a great time talking with you.

56:36 Well, it was really a pleasure having you here. And to all our viewers, thank you for being with us. And I hope you

56:45 had a wonderful time today. And please make sure to subscribe to my channel

56:51 [snorts] so that you don't miss the next episode. Thank you and see you next time.

56:59 Bye-bye.