THE THOUGHTFUL ENTREPRENEUR PODCAST
The Impact of AI on the Software Development Industry
In a recent episode of our podcast, we had the pleasure of speaking with Marc Karasu, the Chief Marketing Officer of Vention, a leading software engineering company. The conversation delved into various aspects of Vention's services, the intricacies of hiring a developer, the transformative impact of AI on the industry, and much more. This blog post aims to break down the key insights from the episode, providing actionable advice and thorough explanations to guide our listeners.
Vention offers a wide range of software engineering services tailored to meet the unique needs of their clients, including custom software development, mobile app development, web development, and cloud solutions. Their approach is highly client-centric, focusing on understanding the unique requirements of each business and delivering customized solutions that drive growth and efficiency. Marc also shared invaluable tips for hiring the right developer, emphasizing the importance of defining project needs clearly, evaluating both technical skills and cultural fit, and leveraging professional networks and platforms like LinkedIn and GitHub.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the software development industry, and Marc highlighted several key areas where AI is making a significant impact. AI-powered tools are streamlining various aspects of the development process, such as automated code generation, bug detection, and predictive analytics, thereby enhancing efficiency and quality. Additionally, AI is improving user experience through personalization and natural language processing. Vention’s growth story and their incubator for startups further underscore their commitment to innovation and support for the entrepreneurial ecosystem, making them a valuable partner for businesses and entrepreneurs looking to leverage cutting-edge software solutions.
About Marc Karasu:
Marc Karasu, Chief Marketing Officer at Vention, holds more than 20 years of experience as a growth marketer at both B2B and B2C companies – transforming brands, scaling disruptive companies, and shaping dynamic cultures. He specializes in translating customer insights into authentic and compelling messaging and has played a crucial role in the development of Vention’s 2023 rebrand. As CMO, Marc leads Vention’s three marketing divisions — Growth, Design, and Brand. He is integral in defining the department’s collective strategy and associated goals on a global scale.
His diverse background in marketing leadership roles with companies such as Yahoo!, Betterment, and Ellevest, coupled with his high EQ shape Marc’s strategic approach to marketing objectives, consistently resulting in the generation of efficient user growth; brand awareness; engagement; and revenue. His early experience also extends to some of the world’s most respected creative agencies such as Chiat/Day and BBH, where he worked hands-on in creative development, media buying, and channel optimization.
About Vention:
Vention is a worldwide team of engineers and innovators, who partner with clients to transform entire industries. Our dedication and technical skill sets us apart as a true partner, capable of taking a company's vision from inception, all the way through to IPO, and even define new industry best practices.
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Links Mentioned in this Episode:
Want to learn more? Check out Vention website at https://ventionteams.com/
Check out Vention on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ventionteams/
Check out Marc Karasu on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/marckarasu
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Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years, and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. With us right now. Mark Karas who? Mark, you are the chief marketing officer of vention. You're on the web at vention teams. Com Mark, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:01:16) - Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:01:17) - All right. What is vention do.
Speaker 3 (00:01:19) - So vention is a leading software engineering company. It's global, offices across 20 different countries and thousands of developers. We basically partner with startups all the way to fortune 500 companies and help founders and business leaders dreams come true by building amazing products.
Speaker 1 (00:01:38) - Yeah. You do. I'm looking through your, your portfolio right now. It's pretty impressive. Would you mind maybe just sharing a little bit about the, you know, some examples of work you do? I'm looking at. And to our friend that's listening, by the way, my recommendation is just go to vention teams.com. So you can see exactly what we're talking about. But but Mark maybe you can illustrate as best you can with our words.
Speaker 3 (00:02:01) - Sure. well I mean, it is a range and for the more startup, let's call them like seed stage series, A type companies, they're usually coming to us looking to help build an MVP product, maybe an app, build a front end website with the CMS, component as well.
Speaker 3 (00:02:22) - for more established companies, of course, they could ask us to build a product as well, but they're often looking for staff augmentation or, depth to their own internal teams, which we can plug in to their existing, engineering teams and sort of help them and supercharge the things they're working on. So it is a range, depending on how big the company is, where they are, they're in their funding and where they are in their product lifecycle.
Speaker 4 (00:02:47) - Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:02:47) - You know, I'll just say from my perspective, it can be really confusing and challenging to hire a developer. I think some of us don't know where to start. I think some of us have maybe gotten hit up or solicited a lot. and so therefore it's just overwhelming. But would you mind maybe just share a little bit of a buyer's guide on how to hire a developer? Sure. I mean, you know, and when I say developer, obviously the broader context of that.
Speaker 3 (00:03:17) - If you're in the market for a kind of service that vention is offering.
Speaker 3 (00:03:22) - You need. Oftentimes more than just a body shop, you need creativity, innovation, partnership. And, you know, certainly invention isn't the only service in the industry that would offer that. and some would argue that the category can be a bit commoditized, which I would agree with. What separates ventures and teams from maybe some other players in the category is really the partnership model that we employ. So, you know, you have to take it on faith at this point. You'd have to check out our service to understand it better. But we really do aim to get to know the business, and get to know the players that we partner with who ultimately hire us so that we understand their pain points, their goals, what they're trying to build and what their product roadmap looks like. And if they're not sure, we can also help them as well. so, you know, definitely there are a lot of players out there that are selling different kinds of services, but oftentimes those are very light or or sort of top level, not really getting into the weeds of the business and how the revenue works.
Speaker 3 (00:04:21) - At the end of the day, we're successful. We think, if our clients are happy because they are making more revenue, it's not just products that work, it's products that are effective, and that generate users engagement and ultimately revenue.
Speaker 1 (00:04:36) - Yeah. Mark, in your world, I'm certain that you've seen some trends. and I can't imagine how many of your clients or potential clients are sharing the two letters. I. And so tell me, tell me about what life has been like over the past, say, six months or so at vention.
Speaker 3 (00:04:57) - Sure. well, the emergence of AI over the last six months, and really, we could even say 12 months, has certainly, Raise the topic of AI much more often. 12 months ago it was more of a novelty conversation. Now it's sort of like missing or egregiously absent if you don't speak to it in a conversation. meaning that, it's a service that we have to offer, and it's an interesting service for us to offer because it's a two sided coin.
Speaker 3 (00:05:30) - On one hand, we want to be able to build, with AI and be able to be more efficient. On the other hand, someone might say, well, is AI going to put you out of business? because I can code. And the answer to that is it depends. We certainly don't put us out of business, at least not anytime soon. But we think there will always be a market for expertise, specialty in human components. But using AI, in many cases, as a mathematician, would use a calculator, in order to be that much more effective and quick. so the answer to your question is certainly AI is a topic of interest. It's certainly a gating topic in a lot of conversations, although I will say, and you've probably heard this too, a lot of people use the phrase but don't really understand what it means or what's asking for. it's sort of like a box. They're checking, and we're aiming to sort of grow our proficiency and expertise. I mean, the whole market is changing, not just in our category, but everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:06:26) - and I think the first step is acknowledging that this is a seismic change, to the way business is done and then figuring out how to upskill your particular service, regardless of what category you're in.
Speaker 1 (00:06:39) - If someone is looking at hiring talent for again development IT services, mobile app and that's, you know, those sorts of things. What is the I mean, you have over 3000 team members. I mean, I would say in some cases that likely gives you a bit of an unfair advantage compared to maybe a small shop, but, how like, I don't know if you're the best solution for everybody, but would you mind maybe talking about, who vention is just a really great fit for, given your capabilities and access? And you know who might be better served by a, you know, a different way of getting the job done.
Speaker 3 (00:07:23) - Sure. it's a good question. every company likes to think they're good at everything. Of course, I think when you got 3000 people.
Speaker 1 (00:07:31) - So I hope you got the bases covered.
Speaker 1 (00:07:33) - Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:07:34) - And I and I think we do. And part of that is the way our, our talent is distributed geographically, which factors into pricing need speed, efficiency. you know, the geography of like maybe partnering with a client in the UK who wants to have talent in their time zone, or North America that wants talent in Mexico, etc.. So, you know, we do, have part of the distribution based on geography to be able to serve a large part of, of the, of the economy, the western economy. you know, I think our sweet spot or I think our sweet spot initially had been start ups. I mean, the company's been around 20 years, and for the first, you know, eight, ten years, let's call it, definitely working with smaller companies as we've gotten bigger, not in terms of people, but in terms of credibility and reputation. We've found many more, certainly fortune 5000 companies and a few fortune 500 companies, just to give you, you know, context, that have reached out, needing the kind of help we offer.
Speaker 3 (00:08:38) - The name of the game really, though, is this concept of partnership and customization. What we offer and what we like to say is we offer engineering peace of mind. And what is engineering peace of mind mean? It means you're not going to get fired when you hire us. You're not going to have to do the job twice. It's not going to take twice as long as you think. you know, whenever anyone buys anything, and certainly in a SaaS based business or a technology business, you don't want to buy a service or a product and look bad to your boss or your founder or your board. one of the things we bring, that we think is unique is incredibly extensive track record of success working with lots of companies. So this in different categories. So this idea of engineering peace of mind is really a differentiator that we lean into in our marketing, and in our messaging, because we think it's a differentiator and something that's very hard for others in our category to say.
Speaker 1 (00:09:33) - Yeah. can you share just a little bit about the history and how you've grown to the size that you have? I know you've been serving as the CMO for just over a year and a half, and congratulations on that.
Speaker 1 (00:09:47) - but where does vention come from?
Speaker 3 (00:09:49) - well, so actually venture is a rebranded name. It was under a different name for the first, 18, 19 years. so we did a rebrand about a year ago to vention. there's no point in telling you the old name because we're not known by it anymore. But the idea behind vention is a name is really leaning into this idea. pretty obviously, I guess. But the idea of invention, innovation being on the cutting edge, and we thought it was a memorable, interesting way to speak in in the time that we're in. That was even the way I had started to emerge. This was sort of before I was where it is today. We we hope and think that the name still fits really nicely into this sort of new AI paradigm. and, the idea really is to sort of better position ourselves for the future with this name change and rebrand, which, you know, builds on everything we had done. but hopefully in a more memorable and interesting way.
Speaker 3 (00:10:45) - in terms of, you know, the story of the business, you know, this is a true, founder led, storyline. You know, two guys basically in a room with a couple of computers 20 years ago, figuring out how they were going to serve this industry and what we were doing and had some success. I don't think they probably, to be honest, necessarily envisioned getting this big into this point back then, because when you're two people in a garage or in an office or whatever, you know, you're just trying to get through the day of the week and the month. and they had success after success, after success, good salespeople, good product. and then the vision began to take shape and slowly scaling the business. So, you know, we I think we all probably agree there's really no such thing as an overnight success story. in our case, it's a 20 year path to that success story, and to where the business is today. And it's really just predicated and built on, relationships.
Speaker 3 (00:11:40) - Yeah. Customer service and and good product. delivery.
Speaker 1 (00:11:45) - Yeah. and it looks as though you have, a number of key partnerships, you kind of talking about that network. And obviously I think that's led to vengeance, dominance in the market. But, you know, from a growth perspective, where is vention going?
Speaker 3 (00:12:01) - Well, I think is the economy has been, you know, tough for everybody over the last, let's say, 18 months, plus the Silicon Valley bank implosion about a year ago. It certainly didn't help the startup ecosystem, interest rates and, VC money. I wouldn't say drying up, but being harder to come by, I would say it's reasonable to suggest the startup community in general has felt a lot of pressure on fundraising and, you know, their, ability to stay solvent over a period of time while they're raising funds. So that has created, you know, that runway reality has created a pressure, I think, for any business that serves or works with startups. While we had already been working with larger businesses, and we still love working with startups, I think the reality of the macro economy suggests that it's important for us and others in our category to go upstream further and with more established companies that are maybe a little bit more, immune or, protected from temporary swings in the market, interest rates.
Speaker 3 (00:13:09) - I mean, I think definitely a tough business climate out there, no matter what size business you are. But, the answer to your question is we're definitely looking to, build more partnerships with larger, more mature companies, not at the expense of startups, but to just have further diversification.
Speaker 1 (00:13:26) - Yeah. to our friend that's listening. And maybe they're doing some research on vention and they've come across this podcast now. They've listened to our conversation. where does the customer journey usually go from here?
Speaker 3 (00:13:39) - After an engagement with us or before?
Speaker 1 (00:13:41) - No, no, they're just now learning about vention. They're searching for this topic and now.
Speaker 3 (00:13:45) - They're like, can I talk to them?
Speaker 1 (00:13:47) - Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:13:48) - So I mean, if you're listening to our conversation in my voice and this is something that piques your interest and you think, oh boy, I would really love to augment my delivery, my development team, or I would love to build that MVP, or I've just received a series B funding and we need to grow five times as fast.
Speaker 3 (00:14:05) - you should go to vention teams. Com and contact us. It's, you know, easy. Of course. And, we will get in touch with you usually within a business day, depending on where you are in the time of day with one of our business development software experts who will do what I would call not exactly a consultation, but, an alignment with you to understand your needs, your growth, what success looks like, and of course, talk, budget and reality of staffing and you know, the size of team and begin to shape up, a customized, scope of work for you to consider. we, you know, have flexibility and how we work with companies as we do work with companies of all sizes. But ultimately, that first step does start with you, the business owner, to recognize the need you have and that you need, that you require, you know, extra incremental help, whether it's for short term or to augment your existing team and you need expertise. And that's where we partner and and do that input process.
Speaker 3 (00:15:05) - I will note that we also have, a promotion we're running right now. not to sound to promo, but we we're excited about this. We've started an incubator. and, part of that is we are taking, submissions and these would probably be smaller companies who are looking to build their MVP, and we'll be picking a winner, from the submissions over the next, period of time and all the information on our website. And that winning company would get, a significant amount of our expertise for free as, as the winner of development expertise to help bring their product or service into reality. So if you're a little short on funds or you haven't reached that series A or even seed yet, do feel free to reach out to us and enter the contest on our incubator, our incubator contest on venture com. It's certainly worth it. because you may be the winner. This is a US only promotion. I should note, for US based businesses, but we're hoping that, we can help some founders dreams come true.
Speaker 3 (00:16:09) - through that promotion.
Speaker 1 (00:16:11) - Yeah. Very exciting. again, that's vention teams. Com and then I found to it I was looking at the newsroom, and that's where I see, again about the invention incubator for startups. Very, very exciting. Mark. Charissa, thank you so much again. You're the chief marketing officer at vention. Again, the website vention teams.com. Thank you. Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:16:34) - Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16:41) - Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence. Com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.
Speaker 1 (00:17:23) - I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt in or email required, where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning. That's right, seven days a week you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur movement.