Bradley A.

Here's a brief demo of KOTS, the first of fifteen new products from our team at Mindlace

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Too often, we get caught up in pursuing perfect outcomes, forgetting that innovation is a journey of trial and error. Check out my full Dialog interview with Mourad Zerroug, CTO at Splash (SplashThat.com): https://lnkd.in/eMgEyBt9

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Artifact generation now in Indigo AI 🚀 This is a huge next step for the product. These artifacts form the foundation of our LLM-ready organizational data structure. It’s the first step towards file creation/transformation, agentic workflows, and advanced automations!

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Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google), another showcase of Canadian politicians bending over for a big US corp, with ZERO tangible results 💩 Roxana and I attended a "private investor demo" session in 2019. A block of wood was passed among the audience, supposedly the NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH in urban development! Demo concluded, by observing a piece of wood! Building blocks of future skyscrapers! The promise? With this, Google will build a "Smart City" for us, the peasants of Toronto, in Queens Quay 🏖️🏢 Sidewalk Labs' website now points to a newer Google scam, it reads: "Build Sustainably with Google Earth"! Bait and switch, but let enough time pass so no one remembers 🤢 https://lnkd.in/gd3B-a6m Guess now the investors and Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario have shit loads of these wooden blocks, ready to shove up somewhere, to find a use for! All because the name "Bloomberg" sounds authoritative enough to our ears? Surely that's capital well spent, instead of investing in local talent! 🤔 Will Canada's tech ecosystem ever crawl out of Silicon Valley's shadow, and stand on its own? ⌚👀⛔

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GoScope.AI: Cultivating Success in AI Product Scoping 🌱🔍 At GoScope.AI, we're proving that in the world of AI product scoping, from little seeds, game-changing solutions grow. We're excited to share the first fruits of our labour: 🎉 We've welcomed our first paying customers! These pioneers aren't just clients; they're visionaries who recognise the power of precise AI product scoping in driving innovation. 📈 Our community is blossoming: 370+ users are now leveraging our AI scoping tools 3 daily active users today, with an average of 7 21 weekly active users shaping the future of AI products 52 monthly active users transforming ideas into actionable product scopes While these numbers may seem modest, remember: every revolutionary AI product starts with a well-defined scope. Each user represents countless AI projects poised for success. 🌳 Nurturing Future Innovation: We're cultivating a paywall - not as a barrier, but as a greenhouse to foster high-quality AI product scoping and sustainable growth in this specialized field. As we tend to these early indicators of success, we're grateful for every user who chooses GoScope.AI to bring clarity to their AI initiatives. We're committed to refining our tools, knowing that with precision and innovation, we're helping shape the future of AI product development. 🚀 And here's the exciting part: We're just getting started! These milestones are merely the first steps in our journey. We have big plans on the horizon and can't wait to share more innovations, features, and success stories with you all. The future of AI product scoping is bright, and GoScope.AI is at the forefront, ready to lead the way. Stay tuned as we grow from a startup to a cornerstone in the AI product scoping ecosystem. The best is yet to come! #AIProductScoping #InnovationGrowth #FromLittleThings #AIStartup #JustGettingStarted

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This week, OpenAI announced its RealTime API for voice with conversational abilities. Couldn't be prouder of our team at TransforML Platforms Inc led by Ali Ahmed who've developed similar technology that works at up to 10x lower costs with better interruption capabilities, and most importantly is model agnostic! If you're interested in seeing a demo and figuring out how you might be able to integrate it with your own customer-facing efforts, feel free to reach out! In the mean time, here is a demo to spurt the brain-cells! #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Digitization

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There is a new #searchengine in town going after #Google and #Perplexity out of Canada A new AI-first search engine, Upend, has emerged from stealth, aiming to democratize access to advanced generative AI models. Upend is a Canadian startup that has just launched its AI-powered search platform, offering users a unique and powerful search experience. Access to 100+ Large Language Models (LLMs): Upend provides users with a wide selection of LLMs, including models from #OpenAI , #Claude , #Mistral , and more, allowing for diverse and specialized search capabilities. Upend offers the option to base search results on Wikipedia, providing users with grounded and cited information. Affordable Pricing: Upend aims to democratize access to advanced AI search by offering team plans starting at $20/month, significantly lower than competitors. Upend's mission to make AI search more accessible and affordable is a significant step towards empowering students, professionals, and businesses to harness the power of generative AI. _______ 🤩 Enjoy being the first to get news like this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Ben Silverman for more! Want to stay up to date on all of the latest news and tools and get them directly to your inbox every week? ⛏️ Join our community of 2,000 + subscribers today https://lnkd.in/gMDQ6CDd https://lnkd.in/dneXZDbK https://lnkd.in/gfMvRbyq

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Here’s what I see. I see companies like Workato and TRAY.IO INC. being sold as integration middlemen because custom integration is so wildly expensive. The top brass is being told that custom will cost a $ million and 8 months, or the middlemen will only cost $500k and 4 months and they jump on a bad comparison because the numbers are so high. Squillo‘s micro-middleware is better, faster, cheaper and actually works. Time to start putting the 🪓 to the middle.

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When I was 25 years old on my first startup, Canada’s largest media company offered us ~$10M to sell our fast growing (but very young) online deals startup. We said NO. 1 year later, we grew by 6x. Canada’s 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest media companies all offered to buy us out. We said NO again. 2 years later, we doubled in size again and merged with our largest competitor. 3 year later… we lost it ALL. Now, all I have to show for my first startup is this lousy Linkedin post. Moral of the story: First-time founders, take that first multi-million $ offer. Don’t over-negotiate. Get a quick win under your belt fast. From there, you’re free to “CHANGE THE WORLD”! Turns out, more often than not, to change the world, you have to change your circumstances first..

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Small Shopify history: The story of Shopify began in 2004 when three friends from Canada—Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake—decided to open an online snowboard shop. Tobias, a programmer by training, took on the task of developing the website but soon encountered that the e-commerce platforms available at the time did not meet their needs. They were either too limited in functionality or too complicated to set up and manage. Dissatisfied with the available solutions, Tobias decided to create his own platform that would be both powerful and easy to use. This decision led to the development of proprietary software that would allow easy launching and managing of online stores. The project took two months to complete, and ultimately, the new system not only satisfied their own needs but also showed potential for other entrepreneurs. In 2006, after successfully launching their online store, they founded Shopify—a platform that made creating and managing online stores accessible to anyone who wanted to sell products online. Initially, Shopify primarily attracted small businesses, but over time it became popular among large companies due to its scalability and flexibility. Over the years, Shopify has grown from a startup to a leading global e-commerce platform, serving hundreds of thousands of clients worldwide and having a significant impact on the global economy. If you want your own Shopify store, just DM me 😉 #shopify #history #ecommerce #splitdev

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What obstacles are preventing you from adopting AI tools and processes in your startup? On Wednesday, at Flybridge Founders Week 2024, I asked the audience this question during an interactive case study workshop. Here were the most common answers: - immature technology - tool selection indecision - lack of team expertise - team adoption and culture - quality and precision of output Every founder is grappling with the challenge of how to apply AI. They are simultaneously worried about falling behind and making a fatal mistake. As you attempt to answer this question, remember this: *The AI tools you use today are the worst that AI will ever be.* Yes, there are obstacles to adopting AI, but founders never let obstacles stop them. Start with one tool, one process at a time. #ArtificialIntelligence #startups #FFW2024 ___ I write about building startups in the age of AI. Subscribe to the Experimentation Machine newsletter: https://buff.ly/3viAAGH

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Exciting news in the #AI world! 🚀 Cohere, the Toronto-based generative AI startup, just secured a massive $500M funding round, skyrocketing its valuation to $5.5B. Three key takeaways from this TechCrunch article: - Cohere's enterprise-focused approach is paying off. By customizing AI models for companies like Oracle and Notion, they've grown from $13M to $35M in annualized revenue in just three months. - Major tech players are taking notice. Investors in this round include Cisco, AMD, Fujitsu, and even AI chip giant NVIDIA. - They're doubling down on growth. With plans to expand their 250-person team by 100% this year, Cohere is gearing up for something big. As someone watching the AI space closely, I'm intrigued by Cohere's strategy of tailoring models to specific business needs. It is setting them apart in a crowded field. What do you think about Cohere's approach? Do you see enterprise-focused AI as the next big wave in tech? Let's discuss it! #AI #TechInvestment #FutureOfBusiness

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If you want to build better AI products, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Hamel H. and Shawn swyx W discuss why your AI product desperately needs evals, common pitfalls building in AI, and their vision for the future of AI engineering. Hamel H. is a seasoned AI consultant and engineer with experience at companies like GitHub, DataRobot, and Airbnb. He is a trailblazer in AI development, known for his innovative work in literate programming and AI-assisted development tools. Shawn swyx W is the host of the @Latent Space podcast, the author of the essay 'Rise of the AI Engineer,' and the founder of the AI Engineer World Fair. Learn: 1. What an AI Engineer really does 2. How to get started with evals 3. How to use LLM as a judge 4. Why generic chatbots can be counterproductive 5. What is literate programming    🎙️ Tune in: → Spotify https://lnkd.in/egT7v5pj → Apple https://lnkd.in/eUsT3mTD Some key takeaways: 1. AI Engineers are a hybrid role: AI engineers blend aspects of traditional machine learning and product development. Unlike ML engineers who focus on technical metrics, AI engineers prioritize product-oriented metrics like user experience and behavior. 2. Start with error analysis and evals: A crucial step in building AI products is conducting detailed error analysis on outputs and categorizing different error types. Writing code-based tests to address these errors helps iterate and improve both product and model performance. 3. How to align LLM as a judge with human feedback: For using LLMs as judges in evaluations, aligning their assessments with human reviewers is crucial, and this process usually takes multiple rounds of refinement. 4. Synthetic data can fill gaps: When real user data is limited or unavailable, synthetic data can simulate real-world scenarios, especially in the early stages of AI product development. This helps identify issues and test features before extensive user feedback is available. You can find more episodes humanloop.com/podcast

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I recently had the opportunity to join a thought-provoking meetup organized by Ahmed Muzammil - Gaper.io - Generative AI & Custom LLM Solutions, where IT company owners gathered to discuss the current state of the industry and strategies for growth over the next three years. Some of takeaways were: - Sales are a major challenge, with many businesses experiencing a decline - Upwork and email marketing are still yielding results for some, but LinkedIn emerged as the top choice for future growth - Content creation and International events/conferences can drive ROI, but expect learning and energy rather than immediate sales - Custom software development will face increasing challenges, with only the fittest surviving The discussion was rich and insightful, and I'm grateful to have been a part of it. Special thanks to Ahmed Muzammil for organizing the meetup and Sir Idrees Butt for sharing your valuable experiences with us. If you were there, feel free to add your own takeaways or insights! #ITindustry #Pakistan #Gaperio #businessgrowth #sales #marketing #LinkedIn #contentcreation #foriegnevents

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3. Sidekick We all already know and use AI like Chatgpt, but Shopify's Sidekick is like a Chatgpt trained on your own data. That's like the difference between a CEO and a (very smart) janitor. Also, Sidekick has access to your store, so it can make changes to it (like creating a customer segment or discount).

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Navigating Sales Growth in Vancouver’s Tech Industry – A Case Study The tech ecosystem in Vancouver is thriving, but I often see startups struggling to build a scalable sales process. Recently, I worked with a local SaaS company (8 employees) to revamp their B2B sales program. By focusing on understanding their ideal clients and creating a customized lead generation strategy, they saw a 30% increase in qualified leads in just 3 months! The key takeaway? Knowing your market and having a clear sales process is essential for staying competitive in Vancouver’s tech space. If you’re a Vancouver startup or new software/tech company looking to scale, let’s discuss how you can improve your sales strategy. Send me an email so we can select the best date and time for our first 15min call... [email protected] #VanTech #BCStartups #VancouverTech #SaaS #SalesConsulting

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Just a few days out from my talk at Toronto Machine Learning Society (TMLS)‘ Summit. I will be speaking next Monday July 15 at 11:30 in Room 1. My talk, “GenAI: A New Renaissance in Product Development” is about actionable tips for how to incorporate GenAI in your day to day workflows. I cover three major topics on how to: 1. Get the most from work with global teams 2. Expedite user research (while still talking to real humans!) 3. Find the best tools to leverage during the product development process Along the way I’ll be sharing caveats and pitfalls to be on the lookout for. I’ve got some fun visuals to backdrop the talk. Plus, I will be launching my playbook for how to use GenAI in the product development process. It covers a whole lot more and the audience will have first access! So come on out from 11:30 - 12 in Room 1! And it’s my first trip to Toronto so please send tips!

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The Rise of E-commerce: Why Shopify is Leading the Way! 🛒💼 E-commerce is booming, and platforms like Shopify are revolutionizing how businesses operate online. At GOFTECH, we’re excited about the future of e-commerce and how Shopify is making it easier for entrepreneurs to thrive. Here’s why Shopify is a game-changer: 🌟 User-Friendly Interface: Shopify’s intuitive design allows anyone to set up and manage an online store with ease. ⚙️ Customizable Themes: A variety of customizable themes help businesses create a unique and professional online presence. 🔌 Robust Integrations: Shopify seamlessly integrates with numerous apps and tools, enhancing functionality and streamlining operations. 📈 Scalability: As your business grows, Shopify scales with you, offering solutions for small startups to large enterprises. 🔐 Secure and Reliable: Shopify provides top-notch security and reliable performance, ensuring your store runs smoothly and safely. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your e-commerce business to the next level, Shopify is the platform of choice. Explore our E-commerce (Shopify) courses at GOFTECH Learning Academy to master this powerful tool. #Ecommerce #Shopify #GOFTECH #OnlineBusiness #TechTrends #BusinessGrowth

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I believe in the same future Mark discussed on Cleo Abram's podcast. The reality, though, is a future where "every company will have multiple internal AI systems" doesn't mean those companies will be building their own systems from scratch. This is why making Basewell's model more accessible both inside and outside of our platform is so critical: because modern companies deserve contextualized, accurate, and fast knowledge/enablement systems actually built for how people learn and work today. (Even more critical when companies can implement said systems without needing to hire new talent or overload their existing teams.) Building enabled teams is a problem as old as time. Yet most enablement systems use bloated, outdated standards, forcing companies to move slowly, waste money by hiring more people, and create inefficient, redundant workflows that hurt the entire organization. Current tools were built for a world that hadn't changed yet. It's not possible to have a forward-thinking organization living in a world where "every company will have its own AI" without ensuring your tools won't bottleneck your progress. Will share more soon.

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