Hosts Will Larry and Victoria Guido interview Sarah Touzani, the founder of Waggle AI, an AI leadership skills coach. Sarah shares insights from her entrepreneurial journey, discussing how her past pottery hobby has influenced her focus and patience, which are crucial skills in her role as a founder. She explains how her transition from a traditional business school path to a senior role in a fast-growing startup, and eventually to founding Waggle AI, was driven by a desire to foster better managerial skills and workplace culture.
Sarah talks about the early challenges and pivots in developing Waggle AI, such as incorporating AI for automatic note-taking to reduce user friction. She describes how Waggle AI assists in meeting preparations, records notes, and provides feedback on leadership skills, helping managers improve their delegation and empathy skills. She also highlights the importance of blending productivity tools with leadership development to enhance team performance and individual well-being.
The discussion also touches on the ethical considerations and core values driving Waggle AI, to emphasize user privacy and minimizing additional workload for managers. Sarah concludes by outlining her vision for the product, focusing on deepening the AI's understanding of managers and adapting recommendations to individual team members' needs.
Waggle AI (https://www.usewaggle.ai/)
Follow Waggle AI on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearewaggle/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/waggle__ai/), TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@waggleai), or X (https://twitter.com/waggle_ai).
Follow Sarah Touzani on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-touzani/).
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Transcript:
WILL: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Will Larry.
VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Sarah Touzani, Founder of Waggle AI, your AI leadership skills coach. Sarah, thank you for joining us.
SARAH: Of course. Thanks for having me.
VICTORIA: To open us up here, what is a past or current hobby that you enjoy?
SARAH: I need to be honest. I haven't done much outside of working since I started the company. But prior to that, I used to spend a lot of time in a pottery studio making pots, and bowls, and mugs, and gifting them to anyone I meet.
WILL: That's really impressive because I tried it for, like, I think a college class. And if you make one mistake, the whole thing gets ruined. I think I made, like, a little, very small bowl, and that was all I could get [laughs].
SARAH: Yeah. I'm not surprised. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of extreme focus in a way because, like you said, like, the single moment your hand moves slightly off, the whole thing is over.
WILL: What's the item that was the most complicated or you're the most proud of?
SARAH: I would say a big bowl that I made, which has a bit of an odd shape because, actually, it was going bad. And I kind of caught it back and made that mistake into something done on purpose in the design, and it worked quite well. But it's also not your average pot or average bowl you see everywhere.
VICTORIA: That's really cool. And I echo Will's sentiments of being impressed by people who can do pottery because I did take a class right before the pandemic. And then, the pandemic hit, and we weren't able to fire any of our pieces [laughs]. But I found that it took just a lot of patience, even to be able to figure out the first step. Like, putting the clay onto the spinning wheel and doing that correctly just takes a lot of practice. And so, I'm curious if you find any of those skills or values from doing pottery translate into being a founder.
SARAH: Yeah, actually, this is funny because I wrote a blog article about this a few years ago when I first sta