A founder and CEO of a machine learning startup NANOS.AI, with 10+ computer scientists, who turn the process of creating and placing online advertisements into a simple, automated, and transparent action. A former Walt Disney Imagineering cast member – founded and developed an innovation group within Disney Research in collaboration with the Computer Graphics Laboratory at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). Background in math, finance, and law, with 20+ patents in multimedia, visualization, machine learning, and online marketing technologies and publications at ACM IUI, IEEE InfoVis, IAAI, and ICIDS.

• CEO Hack: The three-leg strategy of dealing with stress- your professional work, family and personal hobbies
• CEO Nugget: It's important to take small steps
• CEO Defined: Working for people

Website: http://nanos.ai/
www.sashaschriber.com

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashaschriber/
Twitter – www.twitter.com/SashaSchriber
Medium – https://medium.com/@SashaSchriber
Facebook – www.facebook.com/sashaannaschriber/
Tik Tok – www.tiktok.com/@sashaschriber?lang=en
Youtube – www.youtube.com/channel/UCwk04_l6Tf_LylkkwaC6RAQ
Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/3BYkFwAX0dU67enM9vw6JV
Instagram – www.instagram.com/sashaschriber/?hl=en

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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00:20 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Sasha Schreiber of Nanos.ai. Sasha, it's awesome to have you on the show.

01:00 – Sasha Schriber

Thank you for having me.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on as well. Before I jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Sasha so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. A founder and CEO of a machine learning startup, Nanostat AI, with 10 plus computer scientists who turned the process of creating and placing online advertisements into a simple, automated, and transparent action. A former Walt Disney Imagineering cast member founded and developed an innovation group within Disney Research in collaboration with the Computer Graphics Laboratory at the Federal Institute of Technology. She also has a background in math finance and law and with 20-plus patents in multimedia, pre-visualization, machine learning, and online marketing technologies and publications at ACM, IUI, IEEE, InfoViz, IAAI, and ICIDS. Sasha, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:52 – Sasha Schriber

Yes, absolutely. Awesome. Well, that sounds like a lot I've done already.

01:55 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, you're doing a lot of things. I can't even say it. But you've accomplished so much. So I guess I wanted to kick everything off by hearing a little bit more about how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story when you get started with the business?

02:07 – Sasha Schriber

Absolutely. So I came up with the idea of Nanos many years back when there was no such thing as machine learning or data science. And I was thinking about, you know, how technology could make the lives of people easier, faster or cheaper. And once I met a friend of mine, and he's a language teacher, and he was back in the days, it was 2015. He was not a native digital, how should I put it, he was not a digital native. And he was, he had a phone, a smartphone, but he didn't have a laptop. Nor did he have a website. And once he came to me and said, look, Sasha, I really need more clients. I would like to give them lessons. And he was teaching, I believe, 7 different languages. And he said, hey, Sasha, please help me.

So many people in the world who possibly would need my lessons. And I told him, look, you should give me your website, and I'm happy to distribute it. And then he said, yes, but I don't have one. And then that made me think, and I said, well, that's no problem at all. We will build you one. I have a team of computer scientists. What does it take to build a website? Or computer science is nothing. So I asked one of my interns to do so and she did. And one month later, he came back to me again and he said, hey, Sasha, I put a stack of my business cards on your deck. Could you please help me to distribute them? Because I really, really need new clients. And then I told him, look, I know we built you a beautiful website.

I've seen it and it's perfect. And you should be having clients by now.” And he said, yeah, but nobody calls me. And he points me at his phone and straight into my face. And this was this aha moment when I thought, oh, wow, okay, it's not just enough to have a website, you also have to advertise it. And back in the day, obviously, where do you go? I thought, okay, you should advertise your website on Facebook and Google. And then before I told him that I realized he would never go to Facebook and Google and figure out how it all works just because he doesn't have time, doesn't have the knowledge or desire to learn all those things. So I thought, okay, this is the perfect example where technology can help.

My second thought was how many people are out there who could really benefit from technology if they had a simple tool where they can go on the phone or on the laptop, they can go and tell in a few simple words about what they do, what their product or service is all about, how much money they have to advertise today, not on a subscription basis or not like, okay, thousands, but really small budgets. And there's no such tool that could go and really very quickly and easily create an online presence for themselves. So people who are in need of their product or services can very quickly and easily find them online. And this is how Ananas was created.

04:47 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And I know there's a lot of people that are listening that are maybe just aware of, I guess, the digital marketing and those aspects and all those pieces. But how often it changes and how much you have to stay abreast of it. On top of not even being a digital native, it can be really cumbersome for people to try to get their businesses and their names out there. So I love that you've been able to kind of create that easy button, so to speak, to help people be able to talk about and promote the products and services that they have without having to go to like Google University or Facebook University in order to make sure that it happens.

05:18 – Sasha Schriber

Absolutely. And in particular, there are lots of small business owners and flower shops and moms and pops who really don't compete with each other because they're located in different cities. For instance, the flower shop in Munich does not compete with the flower shop in Zurich but these 2 cities are very similar. Both populations speak the German language. The size of the cities and the income level are almost the same. So it's really easy to bring the benefits from one small business owner to another and to make sure that, you know, that my, our clients, Nano's clients can benefit and not waste money on learnings in an online advertisement when it's already, the data is already available.

06:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. You just kind of bridge that gap, so to speak, and allow people to be able to use it and leverage it and get, of course, into the websites and the digital formats by which people can find them. So I love that you've been able to kind of create that.

06:17 – Sasha Schriber

It also lowers the entry barrier because it's very easy to be visible online if you have lots of budgets or maybe marketing agencies that take care of all of your online presence, but really with smaller budgets and if you don't have marketing knowledge or not time, because there are not so many people who are willing to learn what marketing, online marketing is all about. So this is where Nanos comes in handy if it's to lower the entry barrier into online marketing, which means online visibility, which means, you know, prosperity for your business.

06:46 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like these, obviously, these platforms, when at least they started, it kind of seemed like they were lowering the, I guess, barrier to entry, but it seems like it's increased or it's built up again. So I love again, that you've been able to kind of make that easier for everybody to be able to do that. And so I know you touched on it a little bit. Could you drill down a little bit deeper and tell us a little bit more about how Nanos works and how exactly you serve the client you work with?

07:11 – Sasha Schriber

So we walk our users through a very simple intuitive interface. We ask a few questions about what they do, and what kind of products or services they provide. Then we ask them what they know about the audiences they would like to target. So what's their age, gender, which devices they use mobile or desktop, which locations, and which languages they speak? And then afterward, based on all the information that we receive from our clients, we derive meaningful information to create a key set, an initial set of keywords and interests. So keywords would go to Google and interest would go to Facebook. This initial data set, then we will target and place the ads directly on Google and Facebook.

And then afterward, we will optimize those without any human intervention. So we will know what has already worked in the past for similar campaigns. Then we would optimize it daily to see what keywords, what interests don't work, and what platforms don't work. We can turn off Google if we see Google, it's not performing really well for you today. So that makes it really, really unique. Our value proposition for the clients. So we will never try to spend all their daily budget in full because just because they set up a daily budget for their campaigns, but we rather see which platform is performing for them better today, and then we shuffle the budget accordingly. The same goes for keywords and interests.

So these are probably the most, the major values we provide our users. First of all, we collect all the information they have as they would be talking to a marketing agency. Then the second is we place those ads, we create those ads for them based also on the information they provide, but they don't need to think much nowadays even about what to put in their app, because it's also very difficult. If I ask you now to advertise your podcast and create an ad now in 5, 10 minutes, would you, you know, it's rather difficult to think really and to come up with something that is really appealing and to your audience and also something that, you know, for sure it's gonna work.

So what we do is we also suggest, we use AI to suggest meaningful titles and descriptions for the ads. And then based on the budget, based on the product niche, based on the industry, we suggest which platforms to advertise on. So if you don't have knowledge of how Google or Facebook exactly work, you can agree with our suggestions or you can go ahead and do it on your own. Just say, okay, I want to start with all platforms, nano support, which is currently Google, Facebook, and Instagram. Then we would adapt those ads based on the restrictions and limitations of the platforms and we would continuously optimize those ads for our clients.

09:35 – Gresham Harkless

What would you consider to be what I call your secret sauce? This could be for you personally or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

09:44 – Sasha Schriber

I would say with Nanos it was from day one from the very beginning in the team. So I'm a firm believer that nothing on Earth can be built alone. It always takes more than one person to plant a tree, raise a child, and so on, or build a house. And so I would say without NanoStream, obviously, this would not have been possible to build such a complex, very rich on the back and extraordinary tool that is so simple. But like my famous person said, you know, if I had more time, I would have written a short letter. It's the same, you know if you want to make something simple, it takes a lot of time and a lot of iterations. So I would say NanoStream had perfect, had made this perfection. So throughout 2 and a half years, we nailed it. And I would say without NanoStream would not have been possible, to help so many businesses around the world.

10:35 – Gresham Harkless

And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:45 – Sasha Schriber

It's a very, very good question. I call my secret a 3 leg strategy because I learned a lot, I mean, in my professional career, I used to work in corporate research for 70 years leading an innovation team, and I'm 1 of the largest entertainment companies in the world and switching to an entrepreneurial life and becoming a startup or a CEO and building a company from scratch. And what I can relay and say is that almost every day you have to deal with stress and there's a lot of stress. And it doesn't matter. I maybe even had more stress when I was working in a large corporation than I actually have now because I have a little bit more control and I can predict a little bit more things because, in corporate life, it's you never know what you have to do tomorrow just because the company strategy has changed, you know, and you were not asked before.

So I would say dealing with stress is one of the key points, I believe, for a professional to succeed. And you can be somewhere in 6 months, you can be somewhere in 3 months, and dealing with stress actually can really slow you down. So what I found and developed for myself and I'm happy to share also with all the listeners of your podcast is the 3 leg strategies. How do you deal with stress? The key point and I'll try to say it very simple, because I'm a big fan of simplicity, is you have to stand on 3 legs, because this way you are the most stable. And the first leg is your work, your professional life. So you have to be loving what you're doing. The second leg is your family.

So you have to really have the best backup you could ever imagine, you know, you have to have a partner or whatever makes you happy. If you're happy alone, that also, but you should be happy in your private life as well. And the third leg is your hobby. Your personal hobby is not related to your professional activities, not related to any of your family members. It's something you like to do personally that makes you happy. And if you have all these 3 legs functioning, if you have them present and functioning, It works well because when the stress comes, then one of these legs helps the others.

And if you have stress at work, then you can pull yourself out of it through your hobby or through your family. If you're, you know, if stress comes in the family environment, then you can pull out the stress, pull yourself back on track through your work or your hobby. And this is something that I found had been helpful for myself throughout, I would say, the last 15, 20 years.

13:13 – Gresham Harkless

And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

13:23 – Sasha Schriber

I would say maybe a piece of advice to so many other businesses, businessmen women, and professionals out there. I always, I'm very impatient as a person myself and taking life and I'm super passionate about what I do as well. And sometimes I'm More often than not, I'm very frustrated with things going slow. But what I learned throughout my professional life is it's really important to take small steps. You know, we can really, and sometimes you don't even see the progress because by taking these small steps, you think, okay, I'm just still not moving anywhere and things take so much time. But it really doesn't make sense to take radical decisions and try to, you know, force things if they're just not happening, or they're not quite there yet. This really helps.

14:15 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Sasha, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:25 – Sasha Schriber

I would say being a good CEO is something that probably is not very intuitive for somebody who is just starting out. And it wasn't the same for me, but when you're switching from a corporate career to becoming a soloist, a solo printer, or an entrepreneur, you assume that everybody else has the same passion for you, for what you do, and for your business as you do. So you assume that they would put in the same amount of hours or over hours that you do, that they would work with the same passion.

But the fact that you cannot expect this from people because if they had the same attitude as you, they would be also entrepreneurs and they would not be employees of your startup. So I would say this is the most important one is to remember that it's not people who work for you. It's actually you work for people. But again, this is not super intuitive. It only comes with time, this understanding.

15:21 – Gresham Harkless

Sasha, truly appreciate that definition and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all those things you and your team are working on.

15:35 – Sasha Schriber

Yeah if you want to hear more about my thoughts on leadership and what's it like to be a CEO please go check out my LinkedIn profile this is the platform most active on. Also check out Nanos.ai the company we created together with my former Disney research alumnus 2 years ago, which makes online advertisement available to everybody.

15:57 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Sasha. I appreciate it. We will have the links and information in the show notes, but I definitely appreciate you and your team for creating that easy button to make it easier for these small to medium-sized business owners and really all people to be able to advertise and get their name out there. So I appreciate you again for taking some time out and I hope you have a great rest of

16:14 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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