Today we’d like to introduce you to Tex Dworkin.
Hi Tex, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Mine is a ‘better late than never’ story. I became a mom later than most women and I’m a startup founder (of Raddle) who entered tech later than most founders. I hope to instill in my daughter Georgia the importance of working hard to achieve whatever goals she sets for herself and following her passions, wherever (and whenever) they may take her.
Professionally, I’m part of an overlooked demographic: entrepreneurs over 50. As a 50+ founder, I care less about what others think than I did when I was younger, which is useful because building a tech product requires lots of trial and error, testing and iterating, and throughout it all—feedback gathering, which is instrumental in helping us build the best solution possible. Feedback used to scare the crap out of me but I’ve come to crave it.
I hope my later-in-life entrepreneurial journey inspires others to give whatever they’ve been dreaming about doing a shot, however old they are and whatever hurdles they’re up against because not doing so is letting yourself and the world down. We can’t control what happens–but we can control where we put our efforts. So if you’re reading this…consider this a sign and do the thing you’ve been thinking about doing.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Lots of companies make improvements to existing things. My company Raddle is building something new (a Voice AI Facilitator for virtual meetings) which in itself is a big challenge. People aren’t used to having their meetings professionally facilitated on a regular basis, let alone facilitated by a bot. But we know that having a facilitator drastically improves meetings.
It’s common to surmise that a bot couldn’t stop an overtalker from dominating a meeting once he or she gets going or help attendees get back on track when the conversation gets off track, but that (and more) is precisely what we’re building our AI facilitator bot (“Lottie”) to do.
Part of the challenge of getting people to adopt Lottie as their new virtual meeting bff is getting people to trust that Lottie truly has their back. Luckily, people only need to experience the magic of Lottie once to get a sense of how much better their meetings can be with a facilitator.
Like in any developing relationship, what we’re doing is building trust between Lottie and meeting attendees so they come to depend on Lottie and respond accordingly to prompts. Ultimately, people will be able to depend on Lottie to consistently improve their conversations.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
It’s easy to hate on virtual meetings cuz they suck. But they don’t have to. I’m the co-founder of Raddle. We’re building a Voice AI Facilitator (“Lottie”) that plugs into virtual meeting platforms to make meetings more equitable and efficient.
The role of a traditional human facilitator is to improve the way teams communicate, engage, and make decisions in real-time – and that’s what our AI does.
Starting Lottie is as simple as opening http://app.raddle.ai and pasting an invite link for your meeting attendees to join. It works by observing participant interactions and responding in real-time with prompts. The popup window shows the prompts and attendee speaking percentages in real-time to keep the conversation balanced.
To be successful, meetings need structure and guard rails, plus some way to keep attendees cognizant of how their behavior is impacting the conversation in real-time so they can self-adjust as needed. We’re solving for all of this.
When it comes to virtual meetings, there’s a lot of room for improvement. They have the potential of being rich conversations that increase productivity and employee morale but engagement is low, the same people over/under-talk leaving ideas left unsaid, and significant time is avoidably wasted. The result: virtual meetings are inequitable, disengaging, and inefficient.
Lottie exists to extract potential from virtual meetings by ensuring that all attendees feel truly heard and everyone feels that it was a good use of their time.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I wouldn’t say I’m a big risk taker which may seem odd given my chosen profession as a startup founder. Because about 90% of startups fail. But I don’t focus on that. I focus on the big picture of what we’re trying to do (fix virtual meetings by making them inclusive and efficient) and what’s in front of me that I can control to achieve that big vision.
The biggest risk of all would be not trying. I don’t want to end up regretting what I did not do. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take because what we’re building is genuinely needed right now and my diverse team is the one to bring it to market.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://getraddle.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/texdworkin/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/texdworkin
- Other: http://app.raddle.ai
