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 founder, 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 David Bradford, founder, co-founder, and CEO of Virtual Immersive Educational Worlds. David, welcome to the show.
David Bradford: Thanks, Jake. Nice to be with you today.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Well, a little bit more about David. He is a proven business leader with over 40 years of experience in the computer industry and a member of the Utah Technology Hall of Fame. He's been fortunate to run not one but two of America's 50 fastest growing tech companies and even hired the inventor of Apple, Steve Wozniak, to work for him. Today, David Bradford is the CEO of Virtual Immersive Educational Worlds, featuring QuickLearn, allowing for virtual time travel to meet and take lessons from the greatest minds in history driven by AI. David, can't wait to talk about this story and the technology platform you've built and are building. Before we do that, where are you calling in from today?
David Bradford: I'm calling, calling in from my home in Provo, Utah. Kind of uh what we call Silicon Slopes here. You're in Silicon Valley. I've spent years and years traveling up and down the 101 and the 280 and backwards and forwards. So, I know your area well, but I live in Provo, Utah right now.
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.
Very cool. Well, I love Utah and we get out there when we can to do some skiing. So, it's a hidden gem in the US. If you haven't been there, check it out. Um, before we talk about your company here, and I'm fascinated to talk about it because it's not just a product or platform. I think that will be helpful um for today's world, but for the future of how people learn about things in life and from the ground up, kids to adults and everywhere in between. So, I'll let you talk about it, but give us a little background of your origin story. 40 years in the industry is great. Um, as a kid, were you the entrepreneur-minded kid selling lemonade and, you know, newspaper routes? Like, what's your DNA look like from just...
David Bradford: Very much so. I grew up in Burbank, California. And, uh, my first job at 14 was as a box boy in Alpha Beta supermarkets.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Oh, yeah. I remember Alpha...
David Bradford: In the San Fernando Valley. And um, worked in my dad's shop for years, shot him, you know, try to build up a company, have it fail, uh etc. Learned a lot of lessons observing that. Uh, but yeah, entrepreneurship is in my DNA. I gee, you know, I thought I'd take the traditional route. I went to law school, got the first advanced degree in my family, and uh practiced law for um, in a private law firm for three years. But oh my gosh, so boring. And uh that wasn't in David Bradford's DNA. So uh I had a lot more energy and a lot more that I thought we could uh give the world. And so left private law firm and fortunately got hired in 1980 by a company called Prime Computer that was based in Boston, Massachusetts, actually Natick, Mass. And uh yeah, that started my uh 44-year career in uh computers and technology.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow, it's amazing. I know we talked briefly and you had some really interesting stories like that. You had introduced Eric Schmidt, um previously CEO of Google, to the founders of Google. And you know, just the connection with Steve Wozniak. How, how, how did you connect with those really leaders in technology back in the day?
David Bradford: Well, um so I was the chief legal counsel for Novell from 1985 to 2000 and worked for three CEOs along the way. The last CEO I worked for was Eric Schmidt. Eric Schmidt had been early on at Sun Microsystems in the Silicon Valley there. Worked for Scott McNealy and team there. And uh Eric, uh we were looking for a new C... uh CEO, and he'd been CTO at Sun. So we hired him as CEO of Novell in 1996. And so Eric was my boss from '96 to 2000. And uh God bless Eric, he expanded my view of the world and helped me go from just being you know uh general counsel to running four different divisions at Novell. And uh when I left Novell, he and I left at about the same time in the year 2000. And uh I went and started running tech companies here in the state of Utah, and he went to Google. So he did alright. So that's the Schmidt story. The Wozniak story is a little longer, but uh he came to work as my Chief Scientist at one of my companies called Fusion-io circa 2008, 2009.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow, great connections, great people and God, what a lot of success there. Um, you know when we look at companies we first look at the market and say what problem are they trying to solve and do they have a viable product that is solving the problem? I want to dive into your current company today. Uh first and foremost, what inspired you to build what you're building and what are you building?
David Bradford: Well, uh while I was running Fusion-io and then HireVue, um my wife decided to go get her PhD and she succeeded in getting a PhD in instructional technology. Um, and in that uh endeavor, she decided that she wanted to begin using video games for something good, video gaming technologies, and uh built one of the very first uh 3D renderings of a virtual classroom. And it was tested over um, geez, 150 students over 18 months. And it was found that students learning in our virtual world that we had created actually had higher learning gains than those who took the same course from the same instructor, same curriculum in the physical classroom. So that was a pretty ground- uh, shaking uh finding and uh you can read all about it in Linda's PhD dissertation out of Brigham Young University.
But it was that, you know, I found her some software programmers to go build these virtual environments for her. "Oh, I want to build, you know, a game-like system for learning and education." So that was the original inspiration. Uh we then built a product um uh after that uh that demonstrated the power of learning in immersive environments and it was called FluentWorlds and uh it's language training software. Uh think of Duolingo, Babbel, those sorts of apps. Um but in our environments, you're actually going into a hotel. You're interacting with the hotel clerk, you're interacting in an airport, getting a ticket, and while you're doing that, you're practicing your language, be it English, Spanish, whatever. And uh so that was FluentWorlds, and it's still the highest-rated uh English language training app on the Apple iTunes Store. Uh almost a perfect five-star rating uh with thousands of ratings and reviews. So that was FluentWorlds.
And then I'll just quickly explain, AI two years ago exploded upon us. We then took that concept and said, "Hey, we can teach you anything in our virtual worlds." And we'd already created roughly 50 virtual worlds. We now have over a hundred virtual environments that we built using 3D modelers. And uh our latest uh is Benjamin Franklin uh teaching in Independence Hall in Philadelphia where you can interact with Benjamin Franklin. And so now using AI, we imbue into Benjamin Franklin or Albert Einstein or Leonardo da Vinci all knowledge that they would have had. And then they're able to speak it. Not only speak it, it's not just one way. You're not just an observer, you're a participant. You're able to interact with Albert and say, "Albert, how does the uh, your theory of special relativity relate to black holes?" And he responds and you go back and forth. So that's QuickLearn. So we went from FluentWorlds to QuickLearn and that's where we're at today.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: God, that sounds amazing. I took a look at your product and I've got two little boys and I will tell you that we have other apps that we use and they continue to bite at my ankles to, to get your app. So we, we need to get it. Um, we've seen the YouTube videos and really just how things interact. But just walk us through a little bit of the, as you log into the system, what's the experience like for a user?
David Bradford: Well, the first thing you'll see is kind of a Netflix-like um interface uh, be it on the smartphone or on your uh desktop. Um, and and by the way, our platform is based uh in a gaming engine called Unity 3D. And uh it allows for lightweight uh immersion in these environments on your smartphone, desktop, etc. So that's a really distinguishing characteristic, to be able to walk through the pyramids on your smartphone and interact with Cleopatra. It's a pretty cool experience. And so what people will see is a series of courses um that will say um "learn about ancient Egypt from Cleopatra. Click here, enroll in course." Boom. You enroll in course. And um there's two or three free courses on the platform. Uh but then right now like kind of an introductory price, it's 15 bucks a month and you can access more than 50 virtual instructors in more than a 100 courses. And uh ranging from uh strategy and leadership with Steve Young, your NFL Hall of Fame quarterback from the Silicon Valley, and or Larry King, or go back in time and meet with Hercules uh or King Tut.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow, it's amazing. Um, you know, with AI so prevalent, we see it really being utilized and trying to be utilized in almost every sector. And you know, every Fortune 500 company that we're talking to today, from the top down the CEO is saying, "What are we doing with AI? What's our strategy? How do we optimize the business? What revenue opportunities can we generate from it?" But when it comes to education, I think the world is so much bigger in terms of how AI can be applied. And if you think about the current generation we have today, I mean, good or bad, most kids at some point are in front of an iPad. So, if you have a choice, you know, education versus a game or versus something that's not so productive, um, you know, we're looking for options as parents.
David Bradford: Send, send your kid to QuickLearn. Definitely uh make them play in QuickLearn for 30 minutes a day rather than uh playing, you know, some uh shoot 'em up game. So, um, yeah, we, we've tested it with the Duval County School District in Jacksonville, Florida, where we had over 140 students take a course in QuickLearn from their virtual instructor. Now, the real world guy's name is Daniel Flint. He was the Florida History Teacher of the Year in 2022. And we created an avatar of Daniel and imbued in that avatar all knowledge that he has relative to American history. So what he did, we have a course creation portal where he was able to upload his voice, his audio files, and then his PowerPoints, his Word docs, his curriculum, etc., all got dumped into, to his, to his courses. And we created 18 modules on American history uh based on Daniel Flint's uh teachings and background.
And so then the kids who were taking American history uh from Daniel would go home at night and interact with their virtual instructor, but it was Daniel's voice. It was his, you know, looked just like Daniel, looks just like Daniel. And uh the kids then, they did that in March and April and then in early May they took their Florida state history exams. Their sore... their scores soared 12 points. Uh and it was something that the school district superintendent of Duval County said he'd never seen before. And uh we asked Daniel, "Well, you know, what was it due to? Were there other factors that influenced this?" He said, "100% QuickLearn."
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow. That's a great cred- credibility point. Yeah. You know, you've had a lot of experience with technologies and technology companies. Why is this space important to you?
David Bradford: Oh gosh. You know, I go back to uh the the big stepping points, uh the signature points in time in the computer industry. When I joined the computer industry, we were just moving out of the mainframe uh computer, computing industry that was featuring IBM and Honeywell and Cray, etc. And then we went to uh an era for about five years called the super minicomputer. Now it sounds like a small computer and it was relative to a mainframe, but it still cost half a million bucks. So it was a big computing uh environment. In 1981, IBM came out with the first business personal computer. And so again, that was a signature point in time um for you know, moving from mainframe to super minicomputers to the personal computer.
Then the next big jump that affected everybody, you know, now we had this personal computing device in front of us, helped by Apple and IBM and so forth and so on. And then uh you came to the late '90s and the internet exploded upon us. And uh you know, I remember '96, first learning about it. Guy named Joe Firmage came in my office, said, "I'm resigning from Novell. Dave, thanks for all your relationships and, you know, friendships over the years, but I'm going to Silicon Valley and I'm going to build um, you know, a a site where you can create websites. You, I'm going to build something where you can write websites." "What's a website?" you know, and uh so forth. So that was the area, era of uh the internet exploding upon us for the next four or five years.
I see AI is doing the same thing. That's what floats my boat these days. Artificial intelligence is going to impact every phase of our life whether we like it or not. And so it's up to the good people of the world to be able to grab hold of AI and do something positive with it. Um, sure, the internet has its downside and its dark side and so forth. Same thing's going to happen with AI, of course. But if the good people of the world can come together and build upon AI and use it for something good, uh, that's my last mission in life, if you will.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: I love that. Yeah, I I'm a big believer that AI is really going to help uh humanity in a positive way. And of course there's always risks but um you know if you start just with education, I mean what, what, what a, what a great place to be in I think in today's world.
David Bradford: And, and when I think about education, I think about it broadly, right? I think about it in terms of corporate training. Uh, one of my companies was HireVue over time, and we sold our software to CHROs, Chief Human Resources Officers, and they always had a learning and development department, etc. But see, we can take all of that curriculum that is housed in some HR department or learning and development department, and create a course featuring the CEO of that company teaching people about the history of the company, teaching about its products, uh, etc. We create a character imbuing them all that knowledge. And remember we have that rapid course creation tool that we've built in the back end, allowing any L&D department to overnight have a course uh where it's conversational with the CEO.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. Give us the vision of the company. So, we've talked about education for kids and sounds like for corporations with AI embedded into it. Um, what's the, the North Star? What are you shooting for?
David Bradford: Well, I I just think that training needs to become 100% scalable. You know, the old school way of doing things, pre-COVID, etc., etc., uh you'd have a comp-, corporation of 300,000 people and oh, you'd bring a thousand people in every month to your corporate learning and development headquarters in New York or Dallas or Silicon Valley. And you get those people trained in a physical classroom and then you would send them out. But this is a digital world. We should be able to get absolute information about their experience, about learning about it. And with a dashboard that would have, "Oh, okay, here's the sales training they received," and "Bob spent, you know, six hours in virtual training being trained by Einstein on sales, or the company president on sales, whoever the character is that's doing the training." And so we should have all of that information at our fingering, fingertips in order for us to improve. That's, that's the end result. I I'm fond of saying that 60%, 60% of the success of any company is based on its people. And so you've got to have a platform that's completely scalable, that's accessible now. So now when that person goes back to Singapore or wherever they, you know, got their training, now they can go in and do a refresher course with the CEO himself. And have this natural interaction.
That's the crazy thing about AI now and the way in which we've implemented our large language model is it's just so natural. And Einstein will come back and say, uh... in fact, he did this yesterday to me. He says, "Now what are you planning to do the rest of your day?" "Oh, uh, I'm planning to, you know, go fishing this afternoon." "Oh, which stream are you going to fish in? You know, which lake are you going to?" "Oh, I'm going to climb Mount Timpanogos." "Oh, are you gonna go up the Timpooneke trail or are you gonna go to the Aspen Grove Trail? And you know, and can I give you any tips on hiking or fishing or tying flies or whatever proactively?" And it's like, what? You're going to have this personal learning assistant throughout your life. And that's, I guess you ask me where, where, where does this go? I I just want to be walking down the street and want to say, "Hey, Hercules, give me some tips on finding joy in life today."
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah.
David Bradford: And Hercules talks back to me and says, "You know, I had rough patches back in ancient Greece. Uh but I overcame them by doing this, this, and this. Um hope that works for you. Let me know. Call me tomorrow. Talk to me tomorrow." You know.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Crazy stuff. Yeah, it's, you know, it's very engaging and it's also something that you can learn from, but maybe more importantly, it can change your state of mind. I mean, it's not like you're walking around in a positive state of mind all the time. And just to have something that can kind of lift you up when you need to or a tool that can really be a companion at times when you need it and maybe you don't want to talk to anybody, you just want someone to give you some insight.
David Bradford: What, one of the interesting things in these virtual environments is the shy student always performs better. Because you know, they won't speak up in class, they won't raise their hand in class, but when they're dealing with Daniel Flint, their virtual instructor, uh, they'll ask him anything and there's no judgment and they feel completely comfortable so they get the answers that they need to help themselves. So yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow. That's so cool. Oh my God, I gotta definitely get the kids on this one. Um, what's the biggest challenge for the company so far? You've been in business how long now?
David Bradford: You know, this is not your normal VC-backed, you know, metrics-driven organization. Uh, at this stage of our careers and lives, we're able to uh build what we want when we want to. And it... so if we hear about a new innovation to do XYZ or port this to the new Google Glasses or the new Apple you know uh thing, we can do that in a nanosecond because we have a, a small flexible team. Uh and so I, I love that. Um, eventually we need to scale this and need to drive sales, etc. using classic digital marketing and those sorts of things. And, and we will do that at some point in time.
Uh we've had a lot of interested buyers in the company. Uh anyone who needs a strong AI training, education story uh looks to, to us because no one's done quite what we have done because we do it in virtual environments. It's completely adaptive. So, when your 8-year-old goes, goes in there, Einstein's going to ask him some questions to gauge his knowledge of physics, and then he'll gauge his answers depending on what your 8-year-old son is saying.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Oh, wow. Really cool. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Well, it's good to be in a position where you're not driven by Wall Street to have to, you know, grind away and hit the numbers. Um, I want to sh- uh, shift gears a little bit here. You know, you've been in business a long time. Um, what are, what are the keys to making a successful company in your opinion?
David Bradford: Oh gosh. Uh, I'm fond of saying it takes four things. Uh, earlier in our conversation, I talked about people. Uh, 60% uh, you know, of any of the success of any company is based on its people. Now, you've also got to be in a fast growing market. Uh you got to look around, you got to understand, you got to think through what's the future look like. And you know, what are some of those growth industries, uh etc. So you need a growth industry.
The third thing you want is you've got to be able to solve a pain point. I remember some years ago I I was a long jumper. And I was uh, when I turned 50 I was going to break the state long jump record for seniors. And...
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow.
David Bradford: ...I was running down the path to, you know, do my long jump and go over 20 feet or whatever, I can't remember, and I hit the uh, the push-off board and my right hamstring snapped.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Oh.
David Bradford: ...because I was not as flexible as I was when I was 18, long jumping in high school. And so it snapped and I, I remember the mortal pain that I was in. I was flying through the thing getting ready to land in the pit, and I'm thinking, I I don't know what passed through my mind, but it was essentially, "I'd pay a million dollars to get rid of this pain right now."
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow.
David Bradford: And I think that is, you know, something that every entrepreneur has got to be thinking about. People will write checks to solve their pain. So you got to create longer term a great cash generating machine. But you only do that if you're solving someone's pain. And that's not just, you know, uh supplying a want to somebody. "Hey, I want to have a better, you know, experience." No, you have to be solving a need, a need-based. And so uh I would say finding a a pain point uh is that third thing.
And the fourth thing that I would [say] is any company needs capital if it's going to grow. In our case it was my own capital. But you know, other companies you got to go out and and be ready. And I will tell you, uh, it's like just the sun rises up every morning. You think you're going to be able to raise capital in a month because you've got something that's so cool, everybody's just going to write a check for it, etc. Be prepared for an 8 to 12 month journey to raising your capital. Uh yeah, you could be a unicorn and raise it, you know, in a month or two, but it just doesn't happen that way. So be prepared to slog through and get through that, you know, chasm of despair.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Good, great insight. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self having gone through your career and really still in your career, but kind of looking back?
David Bradford: Execute. Uh, I love uh Nolan Bushnell. He was the founder of Atari and he was also the founder of Chuck E. Cheese uh, coincidentally. And uh he wrote a book some years ago called Finding the Next Steve Jobs. It's a wonderful read. It's about 100 pages, kind of big print, etc. Wonderful. But in that book, Nolan talks about uh the concept that everybody who's ever taken a shower has had a great idea. It's the person that gets out of the s- shower, towels off, and goes off and does something about it that wins the day. And so whether it's just filing Articles of Incorporation or filing for a trademark or something, do something concrete to execute on that idea that you had. So execution, execution is, is a big deal.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. God, it's, there's a lot of things that you can prepare and do and sit down at your desk and write out, but if you actually don't make good use of that data and execute with it, it, you know, the perceived value is nothing because no one's going to hear or see it. So, it's, I totally agree with that, you know. Um, and...
David Bradford: But just, I mean, look at yourself, Jake. You could have sat around all day long and never created a podcast. You could have thought, "Oh, I could create this talent podcast," and thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and never done anything about it. And you and I would never be talking again. And so, you know, that's the point. You went out and actually did something about it. You bought a microphone, you did a setup, you got some software, you, you know, execution.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, I totally hear you. And it's true. Uh sometimes it's hard to do things. You don't always have the, the courage to do it or just the follow through. But it's amazing what happens when you just take those little steps. Um, you know, as you look at um I guess going forward here, uh with your company, um, you know, 2025's around the corner for you. What's, what's on the roadmap that you're excited about?
David Bradford: Well, honestly, and I'll be transparent, I've been at this a long time. Uh, and I have 17 grandkids, and love them to death. I need to spend more time there than I am spending on podcasts and videos and creating the next uh generation of online learning. And that's what we've done. It's built. It's done. And so if there's a buyer, if there's a transition opportunity, we need to get this to people like Jake to run. Because, you know, I'll be 74 here shortly. And I just need, you know, uh, some people to maybe come together. Maybe it's a funding scenario. Maybe it's a buyout scenario. I'm not sure. But at some point, Dr. Linda and I need to transition this to the younger generation. Listen, we've, we're still functioning fantastically well and creating great stuff every day, but it's still um, I'd like to see this in some younger hands.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. A little more direct. Yeah. I I love that. And I'm sure that there's absolutely some people interested in taking what you have and, and really bringing it into, into the market in many different ways. Um, you know, I want to talk a little bit about as a company, because you've, you've been running many companies, but one question that always comes up with founders is, you know, should they have outside coaching or should they have a personal board of advisors? What are your thoughts on that?
David Bradford: Wow, just look at my DNA. Every company that I've ever formed in the last 25 years, I surrounded it with a great advisory board. I always start with a great anchor member of that advisory board. And then it's, you're able to move beyond that. Wozniak started as a member of our advisory board at Fusion-io, um, and because of his technical acumen. And Larry King, uh, the famous CNN announcer, uh, interviewer Larry was on my advisory board at HireVue. You start with that anchor tenant, if you will, um, and then you can surround that. But my gosh, you need both a personal and professional advisory board. And people are fond of saying that you're the average of the five people with whom you surround yourself. You're the average of the five people you surround yourself with. So I don't know who you play golf with or pickleball or, you know, go hiking with or whatever, but surround yourself with great people uh that can lift you up.
And uh, so I'm huge advisory board uh proponent because it's not much from the standpoint of an advisor to be a member of an advisory board because they don't have a fiduciary capacity like they would if they were an actual board of directors member. So, you know, it takes, you know, an hour a month to get on a phone call with a founder and say, "Hey, you know, we did this when I was at Sun Microsystems or Prime Computer or whatever it is." And uh those learnings are, are so valuable and they can lift you up. You should have your personal advisory board, Jake, uh for what you're doing in the talent world and podcasting and this, that, and the other.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. No, I've got a coach, but I like the idea of the, the advisory board. What, for those out there that maybe are running their own companies or like this idea, how do you structure that when you go out and maybe you find two or three people that want to be part of, you know, your, your mission? Do you pay them on a monthly basis?
David Bradford: Yeah. No, it's, that's a really, really great question. The way I've set up every one of my advisory boards is um stock options. Just like you would if you were a software engineer. Probably not the amount that you would give your core, you know, golden software engineers. But yeah, give them a little equity, right? And I go back in time on the advisory boards I've sat on, I've had six, seven liquidity events from companies where I was on the advisory board. I think of Omniture in this state of Utah that got bought by Adobe.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah.
David Bradford: And suddenly had a check for, I don't know, $100, $200,000 for, you know, a call once a month. Uh so uh advisory boards can be lucrative for those who, advisors. And so, but I would, there's... you could Google it or do an AI search and just say, "give me a, an advisory board letter with stock options."
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, you'd have something ready to go. Yeah.
David Bradford: You could call a lawyer. That's one of the industries that is going to be completely disrupted by AI, but hey, just, "AI, give me an advisory board letter with stock options," you know, and confidentiality. And it's a, like a one or two-page letter agreement. "Dear Larry, uh want to welcome you as a member of the um HireVue advisory board. Uh your, my expectation is that you'll spend uh one hour a month, one hour a week, whatever it might be, uh giving me advice when I call you um on fundraising" — you know, specify whatever their expertise is — "uh product development, etc. And in exchange for that, we're going to give you an option uh of 10,000 shares vesting over a two-year period, uh 1/24th, uh 1/24th a month." So, you know, etc. So, you do the math and they get maybe 600 stock options at best every month as long as they're a member of your advisory board.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah.
David Bradford: Yeah. You know, make sure you've got a one-year or two-year term on it so that they're incented to respond to your questions over a period of time, etc.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that's really cool to do. Yeah. Well, I'm really excited to see where, what the future holds for your company. And like I said, I I know there's a market for it. Now, it's just a question of, you know, how quickly can it get in the hands of people that know about it and hear about it.
David Bradford: So yeah, there's definitely a strong go-to-market strategy. Um, and um, I, you know, we just need to find those that want to partner with us, if you will, and drive that uh, uh, GTM, go-to-market, uh, GTM, whatever strategy.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: If anybody wants to find your company or the website or try the product, where do they go?
David Bradford: It's simply quik.ai. And it's spelled q-u-i-k-l-e-a-r-n. Quicklearn. All one word. Leave out the 'c'. Quiklearn.ai. Boom. You're in. Uh that's where you find that. If you want to find me, if you want to connect with me, I've got I don't know, 32,000 followers on LinkedIn or something like that. Uh I do quite a bit of LinkedIn. And uh I will, I will respond to people. So, but it, it would be helpful if they do an introduction and just say, "Hey, I'm Joe Blow, I live in Seattle, Washington. I listened to your podcast with Jake. Uh, would love to connect with you." Boom. Then I'll accept and uh I always make room for uh new people in my LinkedIn.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Very cool. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to see what the future holds for you. And I just, really a model uh entrepreneur in my book of where you started and where you're at now with those 17 grandkids.
David Bradford: Yeah. Go spend time with them because time goes quick and, you know, it's valuable. And it's the most important thing is, is that family long-term and eternally. And uh so forth. So, and uh anyway, so I appreciate uh this time with you, Jake. And now I've got to get on another QuickLearn call, which is uh fascinating. I always love demoing what we've done uh because it's so riveting. Oh my gosh. Uh yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Cool. Well, we'll let you go. I want to thank you for coming on, sharing your story and for all the listeners for listening today. It means a lot to me you spent your time with us. I'm your host, Jake Aaron Villarreal, signing off for now and can't wait to catch up with you all 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, and follow us on YouTube where we go behind the scenes to learn what it takes to be a startup founder.
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