Jake Aaron Villarreal: I'm Jake Aaron Villarreal, born and raised in Silicon Valley, and here to take you behind the scenes to share what it's like to be a startup CEO, the journey they're on, the problems they face, and the products they build in an effort to transform industries. I'm excited to have with us today Angie Westbrock, CEO of Standard AI. Angie, welcome to the show.
Angie Westbrock: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well, a little bit more about Angie. She has got a lot of experience, 20 years in retail, CPG and tech, and as today being a CEO, she also knows how to run companies. Um, Standard AI is a company that's focused in the retail analytics startup space. They've raised $150 million in funding and is valued today at a billion dollars. It's helping retailers and brands understand shopper behavior so they can improve the customer experience and their bottom lines. Well, we've got a lot to talk about here today. Before we do that, Angie, where are you calling in from?
Angie Westbrock: I'm uh right here in the Bay Area, but I'm in East Bay out in the 'burbs.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Hundreds of AI startups are launching every month, battling to build their founding teams. As a leader, your job is to get results. When it comes to hiring, that's where it gets tough. So, you go out and you try a recruitment firm, but they don't understand your story. They're off target. And when they send you candidates, it's a waste of time. We believe you should never have your time wasted. That's why we launch Match Relevant, because your story is more than just an open role. It's your founder's journey, the problem you're solving, the product you're building, and why it matters. When we work with companies, we make sure we understand your whole story. So, we go out and do a search, we're on target, it's worth their time, they're interested, and more importantly, it's worth yours. And when it comes to hiring engineers, we work to make sure we get it right by deploying a team of seasoned CTOs that have built some of Silicon Valley's best companies. They can collaborate with you in the technical interviewing process. They can be a sounding board or they can run it for you. When it comes to building teams, there's no time to waste. Let's make it count. If you have a role that needs to be filled, book a time with a hiring guide at matchrelevant.com and learn how we do it.
Great. I love the Bay Area. It's really, I think, you know, there's a power of being close to technology and "proximity" is the term I like to use, where you're around technology, the innovation, the changes and the pivots that are happening. But we're going to talk a little bit about your company, and and before we do that, let's talk a little bit about you and your origin story. Kind of walk us through your background and how did you get into technology and today running a CEO of a billion-dollar startup?
Angie Westbrock: I think, um, you know, my, my story about becoming a CEO is probably more a non-traditional one. Um, and that, you know, I didn't necessarily have aspirations to be a CEO, but I started off my career 20 years ago and, um, I got my degree in chemical engineering, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with that degree. Um, and I ended up having a really great experience in school where my senior unit ops project was in beer, and um that prompted me to reach out for information from Anheuser-Busch, and...
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Nice there.
Angie Westbrock: Um this is back in the you know, this is like before you could apply to anything online. I actually sent them a resume in the mail.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow.
Angie Westbrock: Yes, to a non-dis... like there was no job opening. Anyway, um it's a really interesting story, but I I ended up months later getting a call from them and started my career in CPG manufacturing, brewing at Anheuser-Busch. And um I spent six years there. I loved it. And from there went to Sara Lee Fresh Bakery and was in large commercial bakeries as a plant manager for several years and did a small um brief stint at See's Candies. And so the whole first half of my career really, like 14, 15 years, was in manufacturing, uh delivering to retail, you know, and and building from there.
Um, and then in 201... like '14, I started hearing about meal kits and I had a 2-year-old and um, and I was just like, "Oh man, as a working mom, these meal kits would be unbelievable." It was like Blue Apron and HelloFresh, right? Um, and so they, both companies were coming out to the West Coast. I ended up connected with HelloFresh. I started looking on their website and that was my first jump into tech. So, and startups. So I went from having a 800 and something person team to eight. And um started up operations for HelloFresh on the West Coast and I just completely fell in love with the pace, you know, that being in something new, building it from the ground up. Um I call HelloFresh my, my gateway startup. Like just you know, it was a it was a huge change for me, big pivot to my career, but changed the trajectory.
From there I went to a stealth mode startup so I went even early stage. Um, and from there I was recruited to Lyft, spent several years at Lyft. Um, there was the head of the COVID Task Force. And so this whole time I was still very much on the operations side of the business and plugging in um, anywhere from go-to-market, sales, commercialization, to customer support, you know, to, you know, facility management, large distributed teams, was my whole career. I came to Standard AI three years ago as the COO initially and was recruited to help scale the business and we were at the time focused on autonomous checkout.
And even then, when I was being recruited, um the previous CEO who's who still sits on our board um, I'm close with him, Jordan Fisher, he, he was telling me about autonomous checkout and I was just enamored. And I I said, "Okay, well what are you, what are you doing with the data? You know, how are you using the data to help retailers and brands?" Because with my background, you know, having come from that space, I just kept thinking about all of the tools that we could build on top of what we were collecting and how we were using autonomous checkout. And so um last year when we decided to, we weren't really seeing the growth that we wanted to on autonomous checkout, we started working together on the next phase of the company and decided to pursue data and insights for retail and brands, which was what I was most excited about when I joined a few years ago anyway.
And so that's how I became the CEO. It wasn't um, you know Jordan and I worked on a transition for many months. Um, in fact, when he first approached me with the idea of, of leading as CEO, um, as he was wanting to get back into research and development, I initially was, I just was like, "No." Um, but then, you know, as we talked more about the vision and the idea and him staying on with the board, it became very exciting. And so, I I love the role. It's been a great year. I've just, you know, been in the role now for about nine months. Um...
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Cool. You know when we look at um the business and the sector today of technology and specifically in AI, we're going to talk about Standard. You know it's crazy how much money is being put into AI into 2025, and that three or four months away it's going to be a total of over $200 billion invested in AI technology. And that's where startups and big companies are trying to figure out how to use it. Um, so there's a huge need for it. 83% of Fortune 500 companies, it's like their top priority is trying to figure out how they can benefit from it. So we know there is a huge unlock here and ways to deliver value is coming from multiple different organizations. You got into the business really way earlier on than a lot of tech startups in AI, which I think is fascinating. Um, and you've made some changes to where you're at today and where, where, where you were before. When you when you look at the company and, and we kind of look at companies and say what problem are you solving today and what value you bringing to a customer, there's sometimes a pretty clear path and sometimes it's a little bit tougher to understand. But from your perspective, talk about the problem that you're, you're solving. Now, by the way, if you have a chance, go to Standard AI, the website because there's great videos on kind of what you're doing and how it's working and I think it's really good that you've done a great job of messaging what you bring to, bring to the market.
Angie Westbrock: Thank you. Yes. Because what we're, it's, it's that messaging is really important because it's bringing a completely new dataset that wasn't available to physical brick-and-mortar to market. And so there's a, there's some education that's required. And you talk about AI, this is, you know, what's really exciting for me is even in this quick, you know, AI has been kind of a buzzword now for the last couple of years really. I mean, it's always been around, but especially in the last like year and a half. Um, and already the conversation is changing around a focus on outcomes and and using, it's an enabler. It's not, it's not the whole point. You know, the point of implementing something is not just because it's AI.
What I think is really important about the problem we're solving is it's it's specifically for brick-and-mortar retail. And I, you know, I love this, if you look at my career, this place where tech intersects with the physical world or like real, real life um, is a place that I love to play. And so thinking about how by using cameras, the security cameras in the ceiling, what we're talking about here is computer vision and machine learning. So not necessarily, you know, I think a lot of the discussion these days is around generative AI, what we're doing is using computer vision, machine learning, the security cameras in the ceiling, in order to process all of that information and provide data and insights about what's really happening in the store.
And so the way that I think about that is there is a playbook for success that e-commerce has built over the last 20 years. And the unlock that happened on e-commerce was when analytics and Google Analytics came about on websites, and we realized we could see everything that a customer was doing. You, you know where they're uh dwelling. You know what they're interacting with on the page. You know, you have things like, you know, you think about initially just being able to do AB testing, being able to have more relevant, you know, shopping experiences for customers as they come on a website. And that eventually led to the monetization of ads by being able to prove how many people saw those ads, what the conversion looked like, all of those things. So, when you think about cameras in a physical retail space, and we do this all anonymously, so we do no facial recognition. You know, you mentioned we've been around for for seven years, so we're like an old AI company this time, which I love, by the way. We, we're, we're happy to be a mature AI company. We really pride ourselves in that, on having um a lot of proven technology already in the market. And you know, but, but what's really important is by using this technology anonymously, being able to see how shoppers are engaging and interacting with the store, it opens up all of this data that wasn't available before in order to figure out how to improve the experience, how to make it more engaging, what people are looking for inside the store. Much the way that you have a much more personal experience when you go online, now it'll facilitate those kind of personal experiences in a store. Even combining the two.
And so the real problem that we're solving is just the lack of data that has historically been available. So, you know, a retail store or brands, they have real lagging data. They typically only have sales. So, they'll, they'll implement something, a new product, right? And you, you want to see how it's performing, but all you have is the sales data. So, you don't know, did did anybody even see my new product? Is the problem that they didn't even see it, that I have it in the wrong place of the store? Or is the problem that they saw it and I didn't convert them? That information has not been available. So then you just have to try to make assumptions or you try to you know, it takes a very long time to figure out what's actually happening in the store. And that's where we come in and I'm, I'm, I'm just excited about all of the possibilities that it opens up.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, I I watched the videos as I shared and it's just, it's really cool to see where you can understand the patterns of how people are walking into a store and where the product is you're putting on a shelf. And data being able to tell you, you know, "Hey, if that product is on this shelf, maybe you're going to see an increase of, you know, visibility or maybe sales." And that's really just a question that I think probably all retailers ask themselves. You know, you just try. You put something here and hope it does good and you see how it does. And but to have someone actually be able to or a technology to forecast or give you insights about real data where it's really going to drive revenue, that might be low margins but in volume you can make a real difference. I think that's... I mean you would have to want to look at that at least at a minimum want to understand how it works.
Angie Westbrock: That's right. And we, you know, one of the things we talk about is, okay, so think about, we started as an autonomous checkout company. So you just think about all of the things that you have to be able to do for that to work, right? So you have to be able to track the shopper, know what they picked up, what they interacted with, and we were operating in many, many autonomous sites at 99% accuracy. So, you know, because we were transacting on the data that we were collecting at the time, we were able to... we had to be at 99% accuracy because we're charging someone for that product, right? So, to know that we have that, the, that level of fidelity with our data that we're collecting and the insights that we're providing can give you a ton of confidence.
And we've already with some of our early customers sort of like, you know, uncovered some interesting things that they weren't, they just didn't know before, you know? And part of it is because in addition to sales data, the only other thing that has historically been available is traffic. And so if you're measuring traffic, all traffic is, you know, created equal in that assumption. Which means if you're counting someone, whether they're an employee, or whether their back was actually to the shelf, because orientation really matters... you know, we've, we've found that you can actually um, because we know where someone is dwelling, how they're oriented in the store, there are areas of the store where you may have historically thought they were, you know, high-traffic areas that are actually almost never viewed because the customer almost entirely has their back to it, you know. So, like it's, it's pretty, pretty interesting and relevant data when you start thinking about how to use that.
And another great example is um, you know, when you go into a grocery store, you think about all of the different promotional areas where you might be able, you might be able to buy a product from two, three, four different places in the store, but the supplier, the brands, the retailers, they don't know which place you bought it from. They only know that you, that you ended up transacting on it. And so now we can say, "Hey, this is really the place where you're getting people's attention. So use this other space over here for something else," right? Or just, "How are your customers engaging with you? What are they doing with that product?" And there's so many implications to that all the way from like, from my past like supply chain. It's really interesting, right? Because if you're especially, you're introducing a new product, you're running completely blind until you see the transaction logs on how it's going to do. And yet you're supposed to predict 6 and 12 months in advance so that you can start producing the product that you need. And so to get that real-time feedback on how it's converting and give you those conversion numbers so that you can then use that to make better predictions is going to make impact all the way from, you know, sales, supply chain, ordering all the way through to customer satisfaction.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, well said. You know, for the listeners out there that are hearing this, can you walk us through like the the setup or how it works? The videos again show exactly kind of how it works and but if you're not able to jump online and take a look, you know, talk a little bit about the actual cameras that are bolted onto the ceilings down to the dashboard. What are you really seeing? How long does it take to actually see value from the data that's being gathered to actually seeing some good insights you can make decisions with?
Angie Westbrock: Sure. So we um, right now our our partner for cameras is Axis. So we use uh, they're very prevalent within all of retail and their cameras are amazing. So we, we are integrated with them and so we just... those are uh security cameras. They're obviously very modern ones, but we process that that footage. So um it basically requires... one, we typically have to add some security cameras depending on you know, where promotions are. If there's in-store media that someone's interested in understanding how effective it is. You know, obviously security cameras aren't necessarily always aimed at pointing at those places. So, we'll come in, we do a scan of the store, we figure out exactly where we need to add cameras. Um, we have some compute on-prem and so almost everything is, is processed there. Um, and then we we use our algorithms. It takes us about, we we say about four weeks to train the models on that specific site to be able to start delivering real data. Lots of times we can, we can start seeing insights right away. Um but the, and what we do, because you know a lot of questions are "well there's no facial recognition you know how, how can you tell?" We, we show it online, but um what we see are effectively stick figures or like we, it's basically a map of the person's skeleton. And so we can't... the way that we talk about it is our technology enables us to distinguish one shopper from another in the store. So they, so we can tell that that's the individual shopper and where they're going, but we can't tell that it's Jake.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Correct. Right.
Angie Westbrock: So that's the real benefit of how we're set up. Um, and we don't, you know, we don't give any of that feedback. And so what we're looking at is because we're looking at individual shopper journeys, but then putting that into a dataset that allows you to, you know, kind of splice it and dice it the way that you're interested and, and get insights out of it. Um, we're able to supply that data and then, and then it's, it's really um in near real-time depending on what the customer is looking for. Most of the time um you know nobody's necessarily looking for something in the same minute, but you know we, we can provide daily reports, we can provide weekly, it's really up to the customer at that point.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: So, if I'm running a retail shop somewhere uh in Middle America and I'm using your technology, or maybe I'm a big box company and we're deployed across the US, am I logging into a dashboard, like a computer screen that's going to show me for the most part real-time or daily or weekly numbers of products that are doing well and positions where they're located and revenue that it's generating? Like what specifically are insights that you're hearing from your customers that they like?
Angie Westbrock: So the biggest... yes there is a, there's a couple of different ways we can do it. And, and it really depends also on how the customer is using data already. So we have a dashboard or portal that we can offer. So if they want to look at it separately, we can. If there's a preference to integrate with a tool or system they're already using, we can provide that as well. And what we do is we have um about 10 metrics that we've defined that we are tracking that help kind of put this into reality for a customer. The most important one that we talk about is our visual engagement score. And that's something that you're going to get a baseline on by your product or shelf or, or whatever the um area of interest is in the store. So we can tell you whether it's a, a sign, digital media, a particular promotional area, whatever it is that is your area of interest. We can give you trends about how customers are engaging with it. You get your baseline. You can get it throughout the day.
And an engagement score is to help maybe bring that to life a little bit more. Um so you think about like digital metrics, right? So you might have something like um impressions versus somebody clicking on it versus somebody dwelling on it versus you know, there's like a lot of different ways that you can engage with content. And that's what's always been kind of missing in the physical store. So what we do is based on a combination of things like velocity, dwell time, orientation, and then your proximity to whatever that you know area of interest is, that's how we assign a particular level of engagement, and then we can follow all that all the way through to conversions. So, because we know if you've interacted with a product and you're going to checkout, we can actually map that entire customer journey. And so, you're getting that same information in a dashboard form. It's probably like the easiest way to describe it, but it's um, we can actually configure that for the customer's preference is you're getting those trends over time of how shoppers are then engaging with that area of interest.
And there's other, there's other things we can do too like um out of stock monitoring, planogram compliance. Those are sort of like foundational things by having cameras focused in the store that we can provide. But where we've seen and, and those are those are interesting things for both um you know inventory management and, and also really by the way, almost every retailer is either implementing engaging shopping or thinking about how to solve those problems. And so one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is that we're a platform that you're... it's a new platform for physical retail that you're able to build all these tools on top of. And so, you know, we want to be the trusted provider that allows you to start not having dozens of tech providers, but being able to focus on, you know, one way to receive this data in a much more um precise real-time way. But, um, but back to your original question, which is like what are... which is like what are customers getting the most excited about? It really is the new data that really can't be measured any other way is this visual engagement score. That's completely new. So the other things that we can do, yes we do those things too and there are some competitors that can do components of it or parts of it, but no one can do this visual engagement score that gives you that same amount of data that was available on e-commerce.
And so, you know, we've got the... I, I'm an operator my whole career. And my entire philosophy as a leader, an operator, manager, everything has been surface the data that matters. You know, measure what matters and then get it to the smart people that know the business better than you and allow them to to make decisions with it and implement solutions. Right? So, um, what we do is enable the people that know their business to have the data that they didn't have before, um, and make better decisions, better solutions. And so, you know, I keep kind of saying this, but it's like I know, I know what this does for, as you were mentioning, like revenue, supply chain short-term. What I haven't been able to imagine, and I think that as soon as we get this into the hands of the right people, and that are, that are the experts in retail and, and brand management, then there's just a whole bunch of really cool things about connecting like the digital space with the physical space. And I think that's what's going to really change is now you have this way to bridge those two experiences that you didn't before. And what does that mean for future product development and store experiences? It's like, you know, lots of really cool things at that point.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that's great. You got a great background on the operational side and now you're leading this company. Why is this space important to you?
Angie Westbrock: Um, you know, I love, I love retail and I love physical retail. I I know maybe that's um, uh, you know, but you know what? I'm not alone in that because like 80% of shopping is still happening in stores.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah.
Angie Westbrock: You know what I mean? I I think there is this misconception that um because online and e-commerce is so prevalent and still growing, there is a, a misconception that you know it's not the majority, but, but 80% and in some industries like it's even higher in grocery. And so, um, for me, like continuing to be able to offer tools to that really important industry and that space that help them innovate and evolve and, you know, think about the future is just really exciting. It's a, it's a very fun fun space to innovate in.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Well, you know, we talked earlier and, and you'd mentioned that really a physical space is just one big ad and putting products and putting brands into that space, you can really connect with that idea. Um, so, you know, if you succeed in what you're bringing to market, who's the biggest benefactor of your technology?
Angie Westbrock: I mean, ultimately, I think the consumer. That's my, my, my real belief. Um, because I think what... who's going to use the technology is going to be pretty much multiple teams within the retail and brand space. So you're going to have everywhere from operations to um you know supply chain to retail media to marketing. I think it's going to be a tool that all of them are using, but they're all going to be using it in service of driving what the experience looks like in the store. And to me, that ultimately benefits the consumer because, you know, down to wanting that shopping experience, you know, the product that you want being right there on the shelf when you want it. I mean, that's the, that is the um major benefit of going into a physical store, right? Because no matter how much you get, they keep trying to shrink: get it in two hours, get it in four hours, get it in whatever. No matter how fast, that instant gratification of getting something on the shelf that you want, right? Then there's no way to, there's no way to supersede that, right?
So, um, so that's where I think it's going to be super exciting is all these things that we've grown to love. Like I I love personal ads on shopping on e-commerce. Like I use it to my fullest benefit. I'm in the market for something, I type it into Google and I'm like, "go." All my social media, everything surfaces to me. You know what I was shopping for, helps me compare, helps me understand what I want to shop for. And being able to imagine some shopping experiences that can simulate that or do the same thing in a physical space or bring those together is very exciting for me. Like that would be the best of both worlds, right? Because now, now I could be there seeing it, touching, feeling, experiencing the product that I want to buy, but then also having that ability to sort of, you know, you know, view what else is out there, understand what's happening. There's just a lot of different um a lot of different experiences that you can imagine being built on top of that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Well, also for the shopper, like you said, I mean, the user experience when you go into a store, if it's set up in a way that you're you're taking a path that's giving you what you want to see or buy or potentially just save you time, um, I think that's a, you know, it's like the customer journey. It's a physical journey, but it's something that you can walk out and your experience is better. You know, so you're getting served what you want, it's easy to find and you're in and out. You know, some people like to shop longer than others, but you know, to go in there and to come out, um, you know, you want to go back again because it was easy. So, I think there's a lot to talk about with uh, whoever is going to procure the product about the benefits they will see, not just for their own use, but also from their, from their customers, too. So, really exciting stuff. Um, you know, as you look at the company where it's at today, um, you've been in business for 7 years, you've been building, you got products that you're bringing into market. What's what's the biggest challenge you're seeing, uh, as we head into 2025, positive or negative?
Angie Westbrock: Yeah, I mean for, for us, we touched on this a little bit, but I think one of the challenges that we have is just this um little bit of saturation around AI. And you know, just what, what it means to be an AI company or to adopt an AI tool. And it's, it's like we said, it's like it's becoming sort of like a buzzword. And so we're needing to break through that, that noise to be able to say, "Look, what we have here is a mature tech stack back with real, real proven capabilities." And it's not um you know, it's not just this other uh you know, fast startup trying to capitalize on the buzzword of the day. And so you know that's out there. Um I think the AI companies, the ones that are going to be very successful are the ones that are solving real problems and thinking about those outcomes and what problem they're solving for the customer. And so you, I I think it's, it's just as much as an opportunity as it is a challenge because we do have that seven-year tech stack that we're relying on. And so, inevitably, we're going to be able to show up and deliver on our promises and that's going to work very well for us. Um, it's already started like that's the type of relationships that we're building with our customers right now, the B2B customers. And, um, and I'm excited for that. I mean, we, we're very proud of what's been created here at Standard and we're excited to bring it to market and you know get that, get that um, that customer excitement as well.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Talk about the business model a little bit. So if you're a retailer or you're, you own multiple chains of stores, what, what, what's the model? Do I, do I pay for it like on a monthly basis? Is there like an upfront licensing fee? How does that work?
Angie Westbrock: So, typically the way that we're structuring this right now is the, the cameras are with the retailer, right? So, and we talked about this like a retailer is um really creating one big ad space, you know. And, and we're, we're saying to retailers, "Hey, look, now let's use your ceiling. This is an area of the store that you haven't um been able to really leverage outside of, you know, security and loss prevention. So now let's leverage this in another way." Um and so that you know kind of depends on the retailer, but we, we look at that being a very modest um you know fee around the physical infrastructure that we're installing. And then depending on the ultimate customer, whether it's a retailer solution or a brand's, it's typically set up as an annual subscription. So we'll do, you know, a, a 12-week proof, you know, making sure that everybody feels comfortable on what we're measuring, but then it turns into an annual subscription because you really want this.
It's one of the major benefits and points of differentiation for our technology is that it's not done in batches. And so anything that exists out there right now where you can do these discrete studies, like there are some companies that will leverage security cameras and review them, but it's very laborous you know, labor intent uh intensive and it requires you know, you won't get that feedback, you won't get that analysis for, for months. And so um being able to get real time feedback that you can synthesize based on seasonality, new products, what's happening with the economy, all of those things, and get that with trends over time has been the most interesting model that we've seen so far.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Makes total sense. Well, I love what you're talking about and, and especially in... I have a number of um friends that have built their own companies and they, they are in the retail space. They have multiple chains and or multiple store locations. So, I'd love to share more about this with them and certainly make introductions to you if it, if it makes sense. Um, what are you excited about as you look at 2025 um with the company?
Angie Westbrock: I mean, this is going to be our growth year. So, we just, we pivoted the company starting this year. You know, we just announced it in um the sp- like the spring of 2024. We've landed our first pilot. We've got those insights out in the market. We can show what we're doing. And so 2025 is going to be a big year for Standard AI. This is the year where um we're actually going to be able to start seeing that growth and the impact of having this data in the market. So um we talk about it internally like we know it and everybody's... it's been um you know, pivoting an entire company on what you're bringing to market is pretty, pretty challenging.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah.
Angie Westbrock: So, and we're a fully remote company, so we're, you know, we've done this. We've um, we've the team has been incredible and like every step of the way been like sort of up for it and ready to go. And um as challenging as the last year has been and and fun by the way, but it is challenging to com- sort of like restart the company. Um I keep saying to them like it's really only just begun. Like it's just going to keep get- we're, as, as crazy it is right now, it's, it's never going to be easier than it is right now. It's just going to keep getting keep getting crazier. So like you know, are you eating? Are you sleeping? 2025 is a big year for us. Um and that, and we know that and we're sort of rallying behind that as a company right now. So um so it's 2025 is going to be our year for sure. Growth and go-to-market.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: I love that. Um I want to switch gears here as we end uh with a few more questions. I want to talk a little bit more about you personally. Um, as you take on a company and lead it and you have to make hard decisions, you talked about, you know, a big pivot of where you were at and where you're at today. Um, where have you evolved as a leader?
Angie Westbrock: That's a great question. Um, you know, a big piece of changing my thinking and evolving as a leader actually happened um at Lyft when I was leading the COVID Task Force. And the reason... and so and I go back to those moments now when I think about how I want to implement or communicate or prioritize certain decisions now, because then um they really did in some ways feel like life or death decisions that we, I mean it sometimes felt that way around COVID right. Um, especially when we didn't have all the information in the beginning and so there were things that I learned during that time that I rely on now, that I've sort of incorporated into my, my style, my leadership style, which is one, um just complete transparency, you know? So, that to me is really important. It's like we're going to talk about why a decision was made, how it was made, we're going to answer questions on it.
Um, one of the things that, sort, sort of inspired by that time and how we were operating, one of the things that we implemented post-pivot because there was so many changes and so many things that we were um, you know, innovating and and very quickly developing, um, we, we wanted to, and we're in a remote environment. We wanted to ensure there was con- a lot of context, right? And you, that's something that's so hard when you're in a remote environment because you don't have the like five-minute meeting at the coffee counter, you know, where you're just able to answer quick questions or even just you... I remember like walking through an office, if you're smiling and you're happy as a leader, you're like, you're indicating that things are going well, and there's a real absence of that information in a remote environment.
And so we do something we call a Watch Party where um our product and engineering, go-to-market decisions on the executive team, we, um, we, we have a, a webinar, like everybody can watch it. So there, it's live streamed, like our whole company has access to it. It's not required. They can watch it. They can choose not to. But if they're interested on understanding how we're talking through decisions and how they're being made, and, and it's messy, like these are not uh curated meetings. And that was really important because I'm like "Look, if we're, if we're building trust and transparency then like that's what it is." And sometimes decisions and you know, sometimes they are messy and sometimes you're making decisions without all of the information or data available that you would want but you got to make a decision and move forward. And that's one of the things that we did to really emphasize trust, transparency, speed, you know, all those things that we're trying to create in this culture. And that's really important for us going forward in this new way.
Um, and so I think in addition to uh, you know, just radical transparency, which, which has been part of my, it's always been a core of who I am, but reimagining what that means when you're a CEO. Uh it, it means something different every step of the company and it means something different in a remote environment, but like how do we create the right systems to support that? Um we, we increased our "Ask Me Anythings," you know, but now after 6, nine months, we've noticed like we're not getting as many questions in those. So, we started dialing them back, you know. So, we're we're kind of making sure we're reading the room, we understand our culture, what our, what our company needs in order to help them through that.
But, um, so other than that, I would just say like overcommunicating. You know, we just we try to communicate as often, as frequent as we can. Um, I implemented a weekly, I call it like a weekly CEO post where every Friday I just like write what's on my mind. It's completely, like I genuinely block out Friday mornings and I write it over my coffee on Friday mornings. Not contrived. I do not use ChatGPT for that. I'm a ChatGPT super user by the way. I love it. I do not use it for my... Sometimes it's personal. Sometimes it's just like, "Hey, I'm throwing a a disco dance party for my daughter tonight." And it's like the main thing that's on my mind, you know?
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Um, yeah.
Angie Westbrock: But for the most part, it's, it's like, you know, helping us to keep that drum beat of like what's happening in the company, how are we feeling about it, what's the sentiment? And so anytime um my leadership team, that we're, we're making a decision or we're thinking about it, that's one of the questions we ask is like, have we been transparent and how often, how can we communicate it and what's the right way to communicate it?
Jake Aaron Villarreal: I love that. It kind of touches a little bit on culture. Culture is such a big part of a company and can be a big advantage for a company in the remote world that a lot of us are in today. It's, it can have a different impact and in some ways can be maybe not as well defined when you're not together in rooms and, and whatnot. What, what have you done with culture that you feel is like becoming a real advantage for your company?
Angie Westbrock: I mean some, somewhat of what we talked about before, and I think it's um just ensuring that open line of communication as well. Like Slack is great for that. And I, I always joke around on there. I'm like, "I'm an extrovert in a fully remote company. Please reach out to me and ask me questions. Like, I'm lonely. Please reach out to me." Um, and so I do. I have people uh, the entire company, I almost everyone in the company I've probably Slacked with at some point.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Oh, wow.
Angie Westbrock: Or another. And that to me is this um, you know, we really want a culture of engagement. Meaning, in my experience, the, the thing that lacks the most um in companies that aren't performing, like the negative part, is like if there isn't context to decisions, you end up people, really smart people ending up on opposite ends of a, of a decision or conflicting with one another because they just don't have enough context. And so that's what we try to do.
I think the other thing that's really important, um beyond communicating and providing that context, is so many people interpret remote work as what we did during the pandemic. Okay. Well, that was like you didn't even have the ability to travel. It's not the same thing. So, we have a, a big travel budget. Like that is important. If we're, if we're trying to solve a really difficult tech problem, the engineering team gets together. I mean, they're not gonna, they're going to lock themselves in a room. Like, they're, they're still going to get together in person. Um, we have an annual off-site each year. We're, we started calling them "on-sites" more than offsite. It's actually like bringing everybody in. Uh, but those are really important for us. It's one of the first things we did when we announced the pivot is we brought everybody together. Uh, one of the benefits of being a fully remote company is you can go anywhere. So, you know, this time we, we just kind of opened it up. We ended up in Atlanta. Next time, you know, we'll see. Um but th- those, but but balancing the physical meetings with the remote environment is really important because you really you know I I say this, it's like a cliche but it's like, it's like if you were in a, in a marriage, you can't like never go on a date together and expect you to still be able to like remember why you were together, right? It's the same, it's the same for your team. Like you have to get together. You have to have those moments and you have to, like if it's a hard problem, it's got to be together in a room or at the very least on video.
Um, and so the other thing, my team uh, I always make fun of myself and they make fun of me too, but I I keep saying "I'm trying to bring back the cold call." So like I just love calling people in the middle of the day for, like to ask them a quick question instead of scheduling a meeting. I think we've gotten very formal with all of our interactions these days. You have to text someone to see if you can call them. I'm like, I remember back in the day you just call.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. You just pick that phone up.
Angie Westbrock: Who was going to answer? You had to ask the person to answer, to like, get the person you were calling for, right? You just become like so, so um scared to do that. And so I always, I'm like "I'm bringing back a cold call. We can have a quick five minute conversation." Like it doesn't have to be this like 15 minute scheduled time. And those kind of things I think are just keeping connected. One of our values is "being connected." And so, you know, it's like whether that's in person, whether that's through a quick phone call, whether that's through Slack, you know, whatever that is, it's important. Frequency of communication is often even more important than quality, you know. So, just having that connection point. There's lots of studies that show that and I definitely feel that myself.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: So, yeah, that's great. I'll give one quick plug here. There's um, I read a book recently called The Culture Code and I don't know if you've read it. Have you read it?
Angie Westbrock: Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: And for the listeners, it's so great because in in one area they talk about, you know, the best cultures have vulnerability from the, the founder or the leader down to everyone involved. And you know, using what the Navy SEALs use in terms of how they go on a mission and then come back and get in a huddle and ask three questions. You know, "What did we do right? What did we do wrong? What could we do better?" And everyone goes around and and shares their experience, but even the leader um will talk about what they could have done differently. And it brings everyone together and it gets them to be more open, more, more vulnerable, but also closer as a culture. I think that's something that can be very helpful for a lot of companies because oftentimes as a leader you don't always want to show your weaknesses and sometimes that's the best thing you can do in terms of how you operate and do something.
Angie Westbrock: Especially in a, especially in a culture of innovation, because the facts are you're not going to get it right every time. So if your team is afraid of making a mistake, you cannot innovate.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah.
Angie Westbrock: Right? So, we have to have an environment that feels safe and secure enough, right, to be ourselves, right, to make mistakes. And I I 100% agree with what you just said. Nobody's going to do that if the leader isn't doing that as well.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Yeah.
Angie Westbrock: You're really setting the tone and the stage for what's okay. And um and so we take that very seriously, too.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. That's great. Well, Angie, thanks so much for coming on. I can't wait to see what happens with 2025 as you continue to grow and build. Um, if anyone wants to find Standard AI, where do they go?
Angie Westbrock: Find us on just standard.ai.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, perfect.
Angie Westbrock: And I think we've got a button on there if you want to get in touch with us. Um, also find me on LinkedIn. Um, that's, but all of those ways are acceptable and we're happy to talk to anyone that wants to learn more. And don't be afraid to pick the phone call up and do a cold call.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Really cool. Well, thanks so much. I want to thank you for joining. I also want to thank the listeners for listening today. Uh it means a lot to me that you spent your time with us. My name is Jake Aaron Villarreal. I'm the host of the show. Signing off for now, but can't wait to catch up with you on the next episode. Until then, take care. If you like what we're doing, don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Follow us on YouTube where we go behind the scenes to learn what it takes to be a startup founder.
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