Jonathan Epstein. He’s the current senior VP for international at Sentient Technologies, the maker of Sentient Ascend, the first conversion optimization solution that is powered by evolutionary artificial intelligence. Epstein has been in many companies at the forefront of technology and media including GameSpot, which he’s the founding CEO, and Omek which was sold to Intel and GameSpy which was eventually sold to IGN.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Hire With Your Head What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — BuiltWith and SimilarWeb How many hours of sleep do you get? — 5-6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wished I had stepped on entrepreneurship early”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:22 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:18 – Jon’s good exit range is from tens of millions to the hundreds of million dollars 02:39 – Jon helped the founding CEO of Gamespot turn it around 03:18 – Jon has worked in an actual gaming company 03:29 – Jon started at IDG as magazine publisher 03:49 – GameSpot was the first professional online review site for games 03:56 – GameSpy had an editorial element and Jon published some of its software 04:35 – GameSpot was launched in 1995 04:45 – Jon launched the magazine Digital News and Multimedia World 04:53 – Jon was working for IDG when he launched the magazines under their brand 05:28 – Jon had great partners when he started GameSpot 05:55 – The initial idea came from the 2 co-founders 06:20 – It was clear that the internet thing was happening 06:30 – The problem, then, was that the release of the magazine came out way too late for newly released game reviews 06:55 – Having the magazine online is a better way to update the gamers 07:13 – GameSpot took in external investors 07:34 – GameSpot was sold for stock in ZDNet 08:09 – Jon had an international role and wanted to gain experience in dealing with other countries 08:16 – ZDNet had joint ventures and Jon had been with them for a while 08:34 – Jon had invested from ZDNet to GameSpy 09:04 – Jon had 8% of GameSpy 09:28 – Jon joined GameSpy in September 2001 09:32 – GameSpy was sold in March 2004 10:01 – Jon made around $61M cash from GameSpy’s exit 10:21 – Jon stayed with IGN after the exit and stayed there for a while 10:30 – Jon joined Double Fusion, which is a venture-backed startup 10:55 – Sentient had been around for 9 years and was one of the best funded companies 11:21 – Jon fell in love with Sentient because of their goals 11:29 – Sentient was built with a powerful AI platform 11:34 – It focuses on AI at scale and is able to run AI problems across millions of GPUs 11:58 – Sentient does multiple types of AI 12:00 – One is deep learning or neuron-network which is used for handwriting, voice recognition and image analysis 12:12 – Another product of Sentient is the evolutionary computation which is an AI that mimics natural selection 12:38 – Sentient ran a hedge fund using their products 12:51 – The fund size is growing rapidly 13:14 – Big investors invest to hedge funds in order to achieve stable, good returns 14:16 – Sentient is a SaaS business disrupting the world of AB testing 14:48 – Using the evolutionary AI approach speeds up AB testing 15:41 – Sentient currently has 25 paying customers 15:52 – Average contract price is $3K-30K a month 16:12 – Zero customer churn 16:24 – CAC 16:52 – Sentient is also doing paid advertising 16:56 – Sentient attends conversion conferences where they spend $5K-10K for sponsorship 17:40 – Sentient has raised a total of $143M 17:52 – Sentient has around 110 employees 17:58 – There are still 15-20 open positions 18:24 – Sentient was founded in 2007 18:57 – “We think it’s too early to sell” 19:15 – Mark Cuban said that the first trillionaires will come from AI 20:35 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Never be scared about exits – it just means new doors are opening for you. Be in a company that you’re really interested in—where you can align yourself with their goals. Start as early as you can when it comes to entrepreneurship.
Resources Mentioned:
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOWShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
