811: AI disrupting education + the business landscape w/ William Grube

Speaker 1:
0:00

Hey, what is up? Welcome to this episode of the Wontropner to entrepreneur podcast. As always, I'm your host, brian LoFromento, and I am so excited about today's guest because he epitomizes so much of what I believe it actually means to be an entrepreneur. He's a super young entrepreneur, which is obviously near and dear to my heart, given that I started my entrepreneurial journey quite young, and what I really love about this is this is someone who not only sees the AI revolution and talks about the AI revolution, but he said you know what? I've got skills, I've got passions, I've got knowledge. I want to be a part of the AI revolution and spread all the good things that can go on inside the world of AI. So if you've been wondering what the heck's this AI nonsense? How the heck can I use it? How is it going to change the world? Today's guest is going to shed some light on that. So let me tell you a little bit about him. His name is William Groobie. He's a young entrepreneur, like I said, who delivers AI training at more than 40 schools nationwide. He has had over 70 speaking engagements in the past year alone, all while pursuing an advanced and accelerated master's degree in computer science at North Dakota State University, which, yes, means he's way tougher than I am dealing with that North Dakota winter. He's big into self improvement education, which is part of what I think makes him such a great entrepreneur. He openly acknowledges he said this to me even before we hit record today that he still has a lot to learn, but he's learning it while actually doing it. So I love that part of his story. He's driven by a strong desire to contribute meaningfully to the world. His first step he's chosen to help within the world of education because he recognizes, as a student, as a citizen and as an entrepreneur, that our current education system is completely broken. So we're going to talk about some real world skills here today.

Speaker 1:
1:46

I'm not going to say anything else. Let's dive straight into my interview with William Gruby. All right, william, so much that I'm excited to dive into here today. But first things first, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Heck. Yeah, obviously you are a young entrepreneur, which I'm going to keep tooting your horn for that fact, but I know that you also have an awesome backstory. I think anyone who decides to take action that's so admirable. So take us beyond the bio. How the heck did you decide to actually be a part of what's going on in the world of AI?

Speaker 2:
2:21

Yeah, absolutely. Actually. Myself I wasn't necessarily an entrepreneurial sided kid. It wasn't until I got to college when I kind of got that entrepreneurial nick.

Speaker 2:
2:30

I actually initially went to college for nursing and this was not for me. It took me about a year to realize this is not the best thing for me. So I was kind of in this rut in my life. I was like I don't know what to do. But I also got this kick of like hey, nobody's going to do this for you, but you, you know, you really have to figure this out. And so I decided to learn how to code, just because I knew it was a great skill to have. So I did that and I accelerated and I applied for an accelerated master's program in computer science and actually got accepted, which was up in Fargo, north Dakota. So I moved there and really never looked back.

Speaker 2:
3:02

And then once I got there, it took one internship. I got an internship at a service co-op that service schools with cybersecurity, which was kind of that first little intro of technology in schools. But that internship, that internship it did give me great insights to how technology worked in school. But it kind of learned that I did not want that office job that a computer science major would would give you. So through that I really got interested in doing more entrepreneurial stuff. I started some random things like social media management companies, things of that nature.

Speaker 2:
3:33

That really never worked out. But then when ChatGbt came out, I really saw it as a fantastic opportunity to kind of help schools leverage ChatGbt, almost bring education up to the 21st century. So right when ChatGbt came out I just started speaking at schools about AI. By the end of the school last year I had spoken on over 40 schools about AI and then it gave me really really good insights on how I could potentially form a business around this. So I developed some software, kind of like a learning management system, teaching teachers how to use AI to their advantage. And then I go to schools and spend four hours with them and kind of pretty much walk them through that whole asynchronous course there. So that is more details into the story.

Speaker 1:
4:12

Gosh, I love that overview for so many reasons. It really takes me back to 2008, when I was 19 years old and I started my first business and, william, so much of me. I had that dreamer inside of me that it sounds like you've never been able to suppress inside of yourself as well. And boy do I hope you never suppress it. I feel that way for all of us entrepreneurs. But I also know that there was that voice inside of me that was like I'm 19. Why the heck would anyone listen to me? There's people who are older and wiser and more experienced than me, and so talk to us about that mindset, because I always tell people I was naive. I didn't even listen to those thoughts very frequently. You're a little bit older, a little bit wiser than I was, so I'm super curious to hear about those mindset, things that you've either battled or overcome, or just those waves that you ride along the way.

Speaker 2:
5:00

Yeah, absolutely. I think it was absolutely. Very, very important to me to learn very quickly that I cannot act like I know it all. This is not what I can do. If I go to a school and here's this 22 year old kid trying to talk to all these teachers that have double the life experience of me Each of them have double the life experience of me If I go there and try to act like I know it all, that's going to end terribly. So much like how I came into this call today. I frankly say like I do not have all the answers for you and I do not know it all, but what I do know is how to help you use this tool to your advantage and, coming from that student perspective, I can help you in aspects like hey, we can address this whole student cheating issue and things of that nature.

Speaker 1:
5:41

Yeah, I love that, especially because I think that you're really uniquely and intelligently positioned in the marketplace, because AI is something that you talk about people who are older and maybe wiser but the reality is, ai is a relatively new industry. 10 years ago, we couldn't have even had this conversation, and so to hear the fact that you are bringing this, you are at the forefront of bringing it to schools, to children, to students, and really helping them harness this. Talk to us about where in your journey, obviously, you mentioned the launch of chat GPT, which is when it publicly became available at the consumer level. That was a game changer. Where, along the way, did you say wait, I actually feel strongly enough about this that I don't just want to use it, I want to share it.

Speaker 2:
6:24

Yeah, honestly, I wish I could say before chat GPT came out, but I cannot. But as soon as chat GPT came out I just started hopping on it and I used it so much I was just constantly obsessed with well, how is it doing all this? You know what's going on. Then I realized that you can get so absurdly creative with how you're prompting this thing and you're really only limited by the types of questions that you can think to ask it, which just gives you these unlimited use cases across every single field of study. Everywhere has different use cases. And just having that experience in the educational setting and coming from a student that I guess I failed to mention this, but I've always like kind of had almost this little towards it, little bit of anger towards the education system I was like, well, maybe how could we leverage this thing to help out the current education system?

Speaker 1:
7:11

Yeah, no, I honestly I love the fact that you throw a little bit of shade there. I think all of us entrepreneurs we do feel let down by the we'll call it the traditional educational system. And and, william, today I'm going to lump you in as an educator, because you are part of revolutionizing education and you are also educating the educators. So, by default, you're part of that transformation in that sphere, and I think that that all is to say that you have a really unique vantage point when it comes to AI use cases, because you're an entrepreneur, you're a business owner, just like all of us. You are a student yourself within your master's program, but you're also that educator that I mentioned. Talk to us about some of those real life use cases, because I feel like for so many people, ai is still in the gimmick phase where they're just like. You know, when Siri first came out, people would be like hey, siri, what's your favorite color? And things like that. Talk to us about real life use cases that you've seen wearing the different hats that you wear.

Speaker 2:
8:04

Yes, so absolutely In my in my student life. Of course, right away it came out. I was done writing papers and things of that nature, but it was kind of funny to see when it came out. It was just in time for finals week. I didn't have any finals papers to write, but you could definitely see it across campus, across campus on every single laptop. Everybody had a tab of it open, which was a little funny and maybe a little scary to see at the same time.

Speaker 2:
8:26

But also at the student perspective, I've used it as a learning tool all of the all of the time. For example, I'll take a question on the assignment that I got wrong. Then I'll take the correct answer provided by the professor and I'll toss them to chat you between say hey, explain to me, like I've never taken this course, how we got some question to answer and it'll break it down in simple, simple, simple steps, walking me through exactly and I can see where I got it wrong. In the entrepreneurial space, I use it just for absolutely anything and everything that I can automate. I use it for whether that's putting a bunch of data in table format I do that every single day whether that's rewording a little specific piece of something I write and I just don't like it, or I want to add more clarity, I'll simply just toss them to chat you between, type in, add clarity, things of that nature, any little thing that I can automate that I am doing While I'm doing anything in my business. I am 100% using chat you between other AI tools for when it comes to me using it with the educators and kind of teaching them how to use it. Of course, this was a little bit harder because I was never an educator so I don't know their problems. So that's where… Presenting at the schools and getting so much feedback from educators on how they want to use AI in their everyday life really helped form that training program and I teach them how to do things like create more.

Speaker 2:
9:45

We call AI resisting questions that questions that we know for students to go further than a chat GPT can offer them. We talk about kind of terminating the arms race that happens between Education and anti-treaty technology, but instead making the more that, making the curriculum more impossible to cheap, by the way, it's given and we do this by leveraging AI tools, by creating more local environments based questions, creating more projects, things of that nature. So I help them on that side of things, kind of helping with that aspect of things, but then also just simple things like parent newsletters. You know less in planning, creating in class activities. The list is endless.

Speaker 1:
10:18

Yeah, I really appreciate that, because I hadn't even thought about the fact that we all, as entrepreneurs I mean you lit up the second you started talking about as a business owner I use AI for as many things as possible. I feel the same way. If it's a tool that can be used to my advantage, then sign me up for it. But what I hadn't thought about previously is the world of education's attitude towards AI. It almost seems like in some ways it's it's an enemy for traditional education, but in other ways you gave some use cases as a student where hey, give me some additional clarity about this, explain this answer to me as if I've never taken this class before. It really can be an Educational aid. So my question to you is, as a business owner in that space, is there resistance when you're talking to these schools and traditional educators, or are they Welcoming you with open arms and saying yes, william, make sense of this for us. What's their attitude towards it?

Speaker 2:
11:08

Yeah, it was kind of this interesting journey of as I was giving those.

Speaker 2:
11:11

I keep reflecting back on it, but those presentations last year, kind of the whole point was to shift the mindset from, you know, being scared of AI and thinking of it as an Enemy, to understanding AI's presence and importance and understanding.

Speaker 2:
11:23

You know, this is the tool we have right now. We have to set our students up for a future where in 10 years they have a tool exponentially better than what we're going to be using right now. So I think, simply just saying things like that, I really have to make sure I get that full perspective shift With the teachers, with the schools that I'm working with, before I'm starting getting them hands-on with the tools. So I think I call it's a keynote that I give called teaching during the rise of AI, and that's how I start out. I'm the training at each school that's just really good at kind of shifting that perspective away from fearing AI to understanding its presence and importance and understanding how incredibly helpful this thing has the potential to be and it's not going anywhere. So we can either choose to ignore it and fear it and fall behind, or we can stay ahead of the curve and make sure we're using it to Our advantage and limiting the risks, while you know capitalizing on the positives.

Speaker 1:
12:12

Yeah, even ignoring AI, william, what I really love about your business is that you are going into gosh. We're just gonna keep throwing shade. You're going into a traditional industry, one that has historically been quite closed because of state regulations, federal regulations surrounding curriculum. You know, all of our textbooks are 20 years out of date, if we're lucky and so you've gone into this traditional world with new age solutions. What has that process been like? Because I know for a lot of newer entrepreneurs especially, it scares them away that the bureaucracy I remember early on in my entrepreneurial journey I was like what's the least bureaucratic way to find customers and clients. What has your approach been there? Because I think it's super admirable that you're cracking into an outdated industry is what I'll call it for now.

Speaker 2:
12:58

Yes, it kind of like my approach to get into the schools. Yeah, perfect, awesome, yeah. So right away it was just I found lists online of school admins and started cold emailing them and saying, hey, I'll come talk to your teachers about AI and this is right. After chat she came out and pretty much that first batch went out to pretty much all of the local schools, north Dakota, south Dakota and Minnesota. As I'm in Fargo here and I got some responses. I got lots of responses. I'm just say, hey, yeah, come and do this, and then from there is pretty much all word of Bouts. So I really was able to slow way down on just the marketing and then it was really just all word of mouth Like, hey, william came to, came to the school that you just really liked it, yeah, I'm in. And then really from there, to be honest with you, is pretty much all word of mouth coming in.

Speaker 1:
13:46

Yeah, I love that hustle. I'm gonna give you so much credit for that here on the air listeners, you here. William wasn't waiting for the perfect connections. He wasn't googling on how to do things and posting on social media for eight months. He just outreached directly to the people who he identified that he could help. So huge kudos to you, william. That's that can be scary for sure when it comes to that initial cold outreach, especially so. I love that part of your story Along those lines. I'm super interest interested to hear your views on where AI is going, and I'm always gonna pick on you in two ways, which is one as in, with your entrepreneurial hat on, and then two, obviously, because you work inside of the world of education. Where do you see it going there?

Speaker 2:
14:29

Yeah, absolutely, and coming from the computer science Um world and things of that nature, I just think there's so many unknowns when it comes to AI. Like we know it's gonna disrupt the workforce you know how much things of that nature. So, just kind of setting myself up for the future, my entrepreneurial journeys, I'm constantly thinking like you know, if I go this path, will this be replaceable by AI? Will AI eventually be able to be more efficient at this than me? And kind of I'm trying to position myself In a way that's irreplaceable by AI. You know whether that's more you know In-person things I'd like. I'd like to think that AI wouldn't replace that. I know, if I were to give advice to a high schooler right now that wanted to be in a field that Wasn't gonna be disrupted by AI all too much, I told him, tell him to go into the trades you know, things of that nature I'm probably won't be disrupted by AI all too much. So I'm constantly thinking of you know where AI is going and trying to position myself in a way that I'm not be not gonna Be able to get replaced by AI and I continue to stay, stay making money as AI continues to improve. But I also think it's just gonna be this massive tool. You know, today I would not be able to be doing, you know, grad school along with this business at the same time. If chat you be G wasn't a thing, that it would be, it would be impossible for me to do this.

Speaker 2:
15:51

So I can see how, as more and more tools come out and more, more things can get automated.

Speaker 2:
15:55

You know, people having kind of one person business is sharing value, a unique way is going to be very, very popular, because I am a socialpreneur. There's there's no team or anything I would love. I'd love a couple more team members, but we're working on that. But in the education realm, I just think it's gonna be super transformational and giving students kind of personalized curriculum, you know, based on their results. What should they be learning next? And you know, right now it's kind of like okay, a whole class takes this, once the whole class average gets above a certain score there onto the next thing where you know, the bottom some, some of the bottom kids, you know, weren't quite at that score yet, so they weren't necessarily ready for the next thing, but they're already forced to go into the next thing. So it's going to offer for a lot more personalized learning and just be able to generate all of the content that would help the student learn in a very, very fast way.

Speaker 1:
16:49

You know, taking out that step of you know, teachers just having to create lesson plans for the whole class, yeah, I think there's so many interesting points that you raised there, One of which that I really appreciate from you is the, the in-person things that the trades, for example. That will never be replaced by AI. Ai will never be able to walk into my bathroom and fix my shower, for example, no matter what it does. So I love that, which also raises the point that I think is interesting of in-person versus digital training. For example, during the pandemic, how many of us were stuck at home?

Speaker 1:
17:22

Zoom stock boomed during the pandemic, and I think it's interesting to think about your approach, because in two ways One, you talk about reaching out to local schools in your local area around Fargo, but then, secondly, as I think about your scale in the future, which I know you're going to do, you're going to have so many team members and it's going to be amazing to see your growth path. Where do you balance that? Because I would imagine that hands-on learning for students using chat GPT for the first time must be a mind-blowing experience. So what's part of your growth trajectory and delivery of the education that you want to provide? As far as in-person or virtual learning, yes, so I actually just broke down these stats.

Speaker 2:
18:00

This is perfect, but 60% of everything, all the trainings that I delivered have been in-person, where I'm traveling to the schools and I'm working with the teachers for four hours. Then the other 40% have been virtual, via Zoom. Of course. I see it work much, much better in person because I have the opportunity to kind of walk around and make sure everybody's not having any technical difficulties and things of that nature. But, going forward, I really enjoy going in person, while the time aspect of that is very, very hard. For example, tomorrow I'm driving three hours to a school district, three hours back, but then on Friday I'm driving five hours to a school district, but I'm leaving Thursday night and staying in a hotel and then coming back five hours on Friday. So the time aspect of that while managing everything, is very, very, very difficult.

Speaker 2:
18:43

This is my last semester of school, so it's going to be helpful In the spring when this is off my plate. That's going to be very helpful in terms of time. So as far as scaling I do have right now I'm working on putting together a very, very efficient asynchronous course. I have one set up right now but I don't love it, so I'm kind of redoing the whole thing and then I'm really going to start pushing that asynchronous course, that kind of states, across the country and seeing how well it connects and if that's interested. The only thing with schools and this current business path that I'm on, most schools like in-person PD, especially coming out of the pandemic, they are all sick of Zoom. So I'm just kind of interested to see. I'm going to do more, do more marketing outside of my area just to kind of see where things click and what works going forward.

Speaker 1:
19:32

Yeah, I love that. These are things that you're already thinking about, william, and totally hear you. Post pandemic, I would imagine students never want to hear the word Zoom ever again, which, in turn, I'm sure that teachers would love to not be using Zoom with their students as well. With that in mind, obviously, tech is a natural part of what you and I, as entrepreneurs, do, and you especially, you obviously are in higher education with regards to computer science, but I think it's fascinating that part of your job is to kind of dumb it down to make it usable for literally everyone, even to the point of children in middle school and beyond. Talk to us about the way that you're framing AI in ways that anyone can understand. Anytime I tell my parents, some of which I use it for business wise, they're just like wait, what? So like it does the work for you. Talk to us about your verbiage and messaging around AI so that anyone can understand the use cases.

Speaker 2:
20:24

Yes, I'm a big. Pretty much everything that I've learned is about entrepreneurship. It comes from YouTube and things of that nature. I'm a big Alex from Mozi fan. I'm if you know who that is, and he is very, very good at giving directions in very, very simple language. For example, all of his books are written at like a third grade level, so pretty much anybody can understand them. So I really learned from that how to all my PowerPoint slides are basically just one sentence that really breaks it down into very, very simple, simple, simple terms and just making sure that they don't have to understand how AI works, because, frankly, most of the people in computer science classes don't understand exactly how AI works.

Speaker 2:
21:08

So it's more understanding that, hey, this is a thing, that AI is something that reacts to something that's given or something that's in the environment, and then it's making a human like decision based off of this. And hey, by the way, you've been using AI every single day for years now. For example, you talk to Siri responds to you like a human would often, doing a task that it used to take a human to do. Now, with this chat, you be teething. You're sending in a text prompt and just starting to with text much faster than a human can and just trying to break it down, because I, as a student, I always get very, very frustrated when professors or teachers are trying to teach you something, but they're using all these complex words. It's like you know you just Please as simple, as if you just tell me in a simple way, it would click much, much faster. So that's something I genuinely pride myself in trying to do.

Speaker 1:
21:57

Yeah, it reminds me of that Albert Einstein quote where he once said if you want to impress someone, make it complicated. If you want to help someone, make it simple. So I love that perspective from you. I've got to ask you, I would imagine that part of your work, the way that you leave these schools and these teachers with, is kind of helping them not only of here's how to actually use the tech tool, but here's how to really expand your thinking to see the possibilities. Because what I think about when I see AI in its current state which again it's a very young state of the way that AI is now it's limited to how expansive and creative our thinking is and how to use it. If you ask it simple questions, you're gonna get very simple use cases. But how do you go about helping people to imagine the possibilities of all the different ways that it can fit into their curriculum, their businesses, their life? How do you even begin to train them in how to expand that thinking?

Speaker 2:
22:52

Yeah, and this is gonna sound super, super silly, but actually the first thing I pull up for them is I have one of my first slides and that first presentation I give them. We ask it take the stories from friends in Ted Lasso, have them go on a vacation in Mexico, make a story about it. We're at three adventures, that they go on and add dialogue, and then it goes ahead and spits that out. And then we ask it okay, now turn it into a Beatles song. Then it goes ahead and spits that out.

Speaker 2:
23:20

But then when we get into use cases for teachers, instead of going in straight into the simple things like hey, chat you BT, create me a lesson plan, create me an in class activity, we start, I start, make them start by using these creative ways that they probably wouldn't necessarily have thought of outside, of being prompted to in the presentation. And that's when we start off with the prompts, that kind of help them leverage chat you BT to help bring education up to the 21st century, cause they wouldn't maybe not have necessarily thought of that use case outside. Well, you know, right after chat you BT came out, the biggest use case for teachers was hey, you can ask this thing to write lesson plans. But, like you said, that's kind of like the surface level and it's kind of once you figure out that, you can get absurdly creative with how you're prompted in this thing. The use cases just fly up.

Speaker 1:
24:05

Yeah, which introduces an entirely new concept of. I think there's going to be an AI economy. We saw it with the dot com bubble in the early 2000s. We saw it when the iPhone launched and, all of a sudden, apps were a new thing and people were developing apps and that became an entire economy. You just talked about prompts, for example. Prompt engineering is a skill that's a job. Now there's so many things surrounding it. You are an AI educator in so many different ways. Talk to us about some of the different parts of the ecosystem that you can envision coming along. Obviously, speaking of apps, for example, chat, gpt now has embedded third party data sources and apps and APIs that can play with it. What are some of those other things? Because, william, you're ahead of people in this curve. Share some of those for thinking thoughts with us.

Speaker 2:
24:52

Yes, and it is so impossible to try and keep up with absolutely everything that's going on. So I try to stay in the educator AI tools bubble when looking at these new tools, and there's new tools all the time. It's impossible to keep up. But, like you said, I think there's just going to be this massive uprising. And it's hard to say because you mentioned, like when, the app store and also there's all these different apps and things of that nature. But it's just going to be interesting going forward that there's going to be a lot of fine-tuned models for exact use cases. But whenever I've used any of those models, I've always kind of levitated back towards just using simply chat GPT-4. So right now I don't really see that blowing up as of right now, but who knows, they could get a lot better.

Speaker 1:
25:43

Yeah, I couldn't agree more on the same way, especially like when Kayak was embedded inside chat GPT, I was like this is going to be so cool, but it doesn't have all the parameters that I consider. For example, I will not fly too early, I will not take an early flight, so things like that. That will get better with time as we can build in more parameters, more filters, as it better understands us, the users. So I love your thoughts there. You brought up the concept of keeping up with all the things that are happening and staying within your bubble, which I can imagine. It's one way to stay sane. What are some of those ways that you use to keep up with all the changes? Because, gosh, is it changing daily at some points?

Speaker 2:
26:19

Yes, I try and find one thing to follow that I know tracks it very, very well, so I don't have to go and do the research myself. So, honestly, my main source of news coming in is this newsletter that I subscribe to, but it's the biggest educator AI newsletter. Just every single day has the news for AI and I make sure to read through it. As far as AI higher level, as far as how it's going on in the world, pretty much every time I go to class I might get run down from somebody I'm sitting next to and if I scroll on X or Twitter I often get a run down of where AI is at. And that's how I kind of stay ahead on that sort of stuff Just making sure to follow, following just different people, subscribe to different people on YouTube that cover AI news and making sure to set that seven minutes aside to watch that video, even if necessarily I don't want to, because sometimes it feels like my whole world revolves around that.

Speaker 2:
27:13

Sometimes I don't want to, but sometimes you got to do what you don't want to do and just watch that quick seven minute video so you can get a good grasp on where things are at right now.

Speaker 1:
27:21

Yeah, for sure I feel you on that. There's so much information out there. The fact that, yeah, I didn't even think about the fact that you literally live in it, whether it's work, whether it's school, you're surrounded by it constantly. Social media for you, for example. Yeah, totally feel you on that. I will ask you this, because I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are listening to us talk right now and have this conversation are thinking what tools can I use to get ahead in my own business, whether it's you talked about having a social media agency before whether it is sales, whether it's who knows what, we all have a million different purposes. What tools do you enjoy? So you've mentioned chat, gpt and how you keep on coming back to that one, are there any other AI tools with your entrepreneurial hat on that you like or that you're keeping an eye on, at least for some potential use cases in the future?

Speaker 2:
28:08

Yes, well, first off, of course, I'm going to go back to chat you, but if you don't have chat to be before, you should absolutely 100% invest the $20 a month to get chat to be T forward is an absolute game changer.

Speaker 2:
28:21

That is basically the only platform I use.

Speaker 2:
28:24

Google just released Gemini or Gemini pro, and I've heard it's comparable to chat to be T, for I've tried to use it just to try it for an afternoon and I was like I just I just don't really like it. I'm assuming I like to bring this up like nobody necessarily knew about open AI before November of 2022. So do we really think Google's just going to let them have the best AI tool? Probably not. So we'll see where Google goes with Gemini and if they can really get it going to the to the chat to be just seems to act more as your personal assistant. Like it understands you better when you type something in hey, I need this, boom, send it through and it gives you exactly what you're looking for and you're like, wow, so with Gemini, if I would ask the same thing, sometimes I'm getting something else and then I have to re ask like no, I want it like this. So, right now, if you're not, if you haven't bought chat to be T for highly highly recommend investing, investing that $20 a month.

Speaker 1:
29:18

Yeah, good advice there, listeners. That's super actionable and easy for you. You're hearing it directly from William, who literally lives in this stuff 20 bucks, try it out, see what it's all about. And there's so many different use cases. William has shared some of it with us here on the air today, but you can even ask chat GPT, give it context and say, hey, here's what my business is, here's what my day to day responsibilities are, here's the projects I've got going on. What are some use cases that I can leverage you for. It will also help you along in that process. So, love those insights, william, in that call to action to our listeners Go pay for chat GPT premium. It's 20 bucks, try it out.

Speaker 1:
29:54

Along those lines, though, because you live in AI, I want to talk to you not as an AI expert, but as a fellow entrepreneur for a second here, and with that in mind, entrepreneurially speaking, what are some of the obstacles that you didn't anticipate when you started your business? That along the way, you've been like dang. No one talks about this stuff publicly. You love entrepreneurial content Alex Hormozzi is one of the kings of the space and even as much as you watch that content and consume that content and leverage that content your own growth journey. What are some of those things that have still surprised you along the way?

Speaker 2:
30:26

Yes, bouncing off of that. I think the biggest thing is knowing when you're consuming too much content right away, kind of like when you're getting into entrepreneurship, you can't just get enough in. You're just constantly listening and listening and listening without applying at all. So I think the biggest thing is knowing when to just the biggest obstacle I run into is I'll just sit and I'll pull up my phone and I'll kind of get lost in this content, like whether I'm watching business content or something else. It's just far too much information.

Speaker 2:
30:54

I think it's much more helpful to just take in one piece of information, go apply that information and really apply that information, master it, before I'm trying to go and grab another piece of information to apply that piece of information. So kind of making sure I'm not just blindly taking in this content and not taking any action on what I'm listening to. Other obstacles it's just like, kind of as it gets kicking off, like I'm so young and so the obstacle aspect of it I still have so, so much to learn, so I don't even know what some of my obstacles are, but right now kind of one of the biggest ones is you know, I'm in Fargo, north Dakota, there's not much going on here and just kind of finding like-minded people and things of that nature have always has become an obstacle for me.

Speaker 1:
31:37

Yeah, I love the way that you expressed those to us. I don't think we talk about these things enough as entrepreneurs. Your point to consuming content is something that I learned early on in business school. I remember we always talked about just in time inventory, where if you and I have a warehouse, we don't want more inventory than we need. That's just sitting there. So I always applied that to just in time learning.

Speaker 1:
31:59

If I'm struggling with sales right now, let me go learn about sales master that, execute on that and then figure out, as you said at the end of your answer. There I don't even know what the next obstacle is going to be, but I'll figure it out and I'll learn about it and overcome it when I get there. So I love those real life insights. Also, considering your age, I do want to ask you about this. It's always fascinating to me to see the way that different entrepreneurs think. What are your growth plans, william? What can we be looking for you in the next year, in the next two, three years? Obviously, schools ending in the spring. How far along are you thinking?

Speaker 2:
32:29

Yes, and right now it's very, very hard, because a year ago I would have never have guessed where I'm at right now. I opened my LLC a little less than a year ago now and I could never have guessed the amount of traffic that it got and the amount of stack that I've got to cash. And I think, as an entrepreneur, the first business that you start is kind of, yes, you have this passion of wanting to contribute meaningful in a meaningful way and I absolutely have that passion and that's the passion that I want to keep grasping onto. Going forward with that kind of first business is you kind of start it to, you get that first paycheck and you're like, wow, like I did that by myself, that stripe notification that was sent straight to me. I didn't get paid out of a business for that, that was sent straight to me. I'm addicted to this, making money your own way. So the first business you start is kind of like you started to make money and to learn. So going forward, I honestly don't know where I'm going to be in here. I just don't want to keep pushing forward and keep pushing forward.

Speaker 2:
33:31

Of course I played around with the idea, coming from the software side of things to build an AI software for schools. I'm thinking of that nature, but I've also played with kind of ditching that, the whole school aspect of it, and trying to align in a different way, I think, just to my advantage right now the fact that I am so young and that I've gotten the skills getting the skills of all the public speaking that I've done in the past year, hours and hours and hours. That is something that most people do not get to do and I've had that opportunity to really hone in my public speaking skills and things of that nature. I've had just the opportunity to like stack these skills on top of each other, going forward, and I just don't want to necessarily limit myself to any path right now. But there'll be big decisions coming in, because once I pick a path or pick something to do, I'm first in that I have to pick that thing and go forward or else I'll always regret looking back and not necessarily just staying focused on one thing.

Speaker 1:
34:22

Yeah, I love that perspective and I totally relate. The second you said stripe notifications. In my head I was like that's what we thrive on, because every stripe notification is not just money hitting your bank account, but it's also a sign of the impact that you're continuing to make and all the people that you're continuing to serve. So, whatever your pivots may be along the way, let there be many more of those notifications in your future, which I know that there will be. William, I love hearing your thoughts about entrepreneurship. I knew time would absolutely fly by in today's episode so, with that in mind, I always love asking my guests what's that one takeaway with listeners all over the world at various stages of their entrepreneurial journey? What's that one thing that you hope every listener walks away from today's conversation with whether it's AI related, whether it's business related that you've already learned in your own entrepreneurial journey? What's that thing that you hope sticks for people today?

Speaker 2:
35:12

Yeah, if you're a young entrepreneur, entrepreneur, a entrepreneur haven't started something yet, don't do nothing, do something. You will learn from it. And if you'll either learn that you don't want to do that thing or learn that you can make money doing that thing, and make sure you're actually trying to master something and not just throwing a half effort at it and saying, nope, that thing didn't work. But for the older entrepreneurs that have more life experience than me, I would just say, being young and being the AI world, make sure that you're at least trying to use AI to your advantage because, trust me, it will genuinely change the nature of how you work and it will streamline your efficiency to this incredible amount, so you have more time to do some of the creative tasks that you do throughout your day, whether that's writing and things of that nature, and really working on your business instead of inside of your business.

Speaker 1:
35:57

Yeah, really good words of wisdom. William, I'm going to throw it out there. You offered some insights not only for the young ins, but also the ones who are more established in their business careers. And I'm going to throw this out for all of you listeners is that when we use these terms of relativity of young versus more established or older, it has nothing to do with the years, so it all depends on if you're a entrepreneur and you're 50 years old, you are equally equipped as William was.

Speaker 1:
36:22

You saw, william just dove in and took action imperfect action. I think that's such a theme of today's episode that it's really important for all of us to recognize that we can dive in at any given moment in time. The world is always changing. William is just as new to AI as all of us, but he went deep into studying it, learning it and executing on it. So I really love these insights that you've shared with us here today, william. I know that people are going to be keen to follow your journey. I personally, very much, am excited to be connected with you from this day forward. Drop those links on us. Where can listeners go to learn more about your business and all the awesome things that you're up to?

Speaker 2:
36:57

Awesome. Yes, Could learn more about the business. You can go to grooveyeducationcom. That's G R U V Y educationcom. Feel free to follow me on LinkedIn and William groovy. I post on there kind of updates on what schools I was at the week, what I was doing that week and just anything that's top of mind.

Speaker 1:
37:13

Yes, listeners, you already know the drill. We are dropping those links down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode. So, william, on behalf of myself and all the listeners around the world, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Speaker 2:
37:26

Thank you so much for having me. I genuinely appreciate it.

Speaker 1:
37:29

Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wontrepner to entrepreneur podcast. If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there. Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewontrepnershowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests. There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

Speaker 1:
37:57

These are not sponsored episodes. These are not infomercials. Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions. They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome wontrepners and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible. So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there. We also have live chat. If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewontrepnershowcom. Initiate a live chat. It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the wontrepner to entrepreneur podcast.