The Entrepreneur DNA - Inside Cornerstone X: How this 'She-E-O' Built the $30M AI Revolution | Chantal Bacon
Episode Date: October 6, 2025If you think you need an MBA to build a serious tech company, this episode will wreck that belief. I’m sitting down with Chantal Bacon, Founder/CEO of Cornerstone X—an empathy-driven AI + metahuma...n platform powering customer experience for governments and global enterprises. In just 18 months, she raised $1.5M, hired a world-class team, and grew to multimillion-dollar valuation—without a business degree. We get into fundraising, metahumans that reason in real time, and how faith + philosophy shaped her leadership playbook. What you’ll learn: How to raise capital fast without “traditional” credentials Why empathetic AI beats commodity chatbots Practical metahuman use cases (real estate, gov, automotive, education) The five laws of success we both live by Faith, grit, and building alliances with giants About Chantal: Chantal Bacon is the Founder and CEO of Cornerstone X, an AI and metahuman technology company redefining customer experience through empathy-driven innovation. In less than two years, she grew Cornerstone X from concept to a $30 million global enterprise serving clients including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NVIDIA, and major partners across Europe and the Middle East. A former theology scholar turned tech visionary, Chantal blends faith, emotional intelligence, and deep technical insight to build the most human AI systems on earth. Her mission is to create technology that enhances—not replaces—human connection. About Justin: After investing in real estate for over 18 years and almost 3000 deals done, Justin has created a business that generates 7 figures in active income through wholesaling and fix and flipping as well as accumulating millions of dollars of rental properties including 5 apartment buildings, 50+ single family homes, and 1 storage facility Justins longevity in real estate is due to his ability to look around the corners, adapt to changing markets, perfecting Raising private capital, and focusing on lead generation which allows him to not just wholesale and fix & flip, but also accumulate wealth through long term holds. His success in real estate led him to start The Entrepreneur DNA podcast and The Science Of Flipping podcast and education company, and REI LIVE where he’s actively doing deals with members. He has coached and mentored thousands of aspiring and active investors over the last decade. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby YouTube: Justin Colby TikTok: @justincolbytsof LinkedIn: Justin Colby Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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What is up, Entrepreneur DNA family?
We are back and let me tell you, you are going to want to stay tuned to this episode.
We have a mighty might in the house and she has probably the biggest allegiance with giants I've ever seen in my life.
She's been in business for a year and a half.
She doesn't have a business degree, didn't go to school for business, and she is crushing it on her entrepreneur journey.
Chantelle Bacon is here.
Hi.
It's good to be here.
And greetings from West Palm Beach, Florida.
Yeah, this is going to be fun.
So listen, I think everyone needs to know your story.
I think it's important to say where you are today and what you're currently working on.
But very quickly, I need them to also understand the background of what got you here.
Okay.
Because everyone here is either an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur.
They need to know why you're on this podcast, why you're so incredible.
Okay.
So let's just talk about Cornerstone X and what that is and who you're working with and what's going to be going on in the future.
because guess what guys it's AI so just so you know AI is a big theme here but then we want to get into
your background what got you to the place so what is cornerstone X and what are you guys focusing on
okay so past present future you want to start off with where we are current today with present
okay and then we're going to go past and then we're going to go future okay sounds good to me
so I am a serial entrepreneur my background was in theology actually no business degree and right when
COVID hit, I decided to learn about AI. I knew that the market was going to these areas. So
while everybody was worried about the pandemic, I kind of went underground to teach myself and
understand where this industry is going to potentially grow in the future. Fast forward to where
we are today. And we can unpack the past further. It was an element of us creating Cornerstone
X two years ago. But really over the past 18 months, our company went from slideware to now software
that's getting sold globally, internationally.
Went out to fundraise as somebody who's never taken a business course in my life
and understood how you have to create a pitch deck or even speak about different topics,
set forth within the idea to raise a million dollars in funding,
and then within four months closed at $1.5 million and saw that here's the growth.
But it's really somebody who's able to articulate a vision very well
and be very clear and concise in that.
So that's now led us to creating cornerstone.
Stone X, a global company with about 22 people working and creating AI and metahumans in the area of customer experience.
And it's there to help and support and service.
So during this podcast, we can talk about the different opportunities that's now coming to Cornerstone X, but very blessed to be here and excited to see where AI is going to continue to expand and grow and leverage business opportunities.
AI is obviously the trigger word in the world right now, right?
Everyone's talking about it.
So Cornerstone X has metahumans.
Some people, when I think of metahuman, I think of like if I was on a FaceTime and there is not a human on the other end, but it is a metahuman talking to me just like I'm talking to you, this very second.
This is what we're talking about.
And you and or slash this AI human bought, what would we call it, an AI?
Think if it as an AI avatar?
Avatar, okay. And they will help me, my company with all things service component.
Exactly right. So you think about real estate, for example, if there are several different listings,
what if you had a virtual assistant that is an AI metahuman, an avatar that is now embedded with business logic and intelligence to reason in real time and take action?
That you don't even need to be there, Justin. You have your own metahuman replica answering just a little.
the preliminary screen calls or helping somebody, let's say, you've got several tenants and you're
trying to manage different properties that's there, all of that can be done and automated
through a very efficient metahuman. Wouldn't every business want this? Exactly why I went
into this industry, because the use cases are very versatile. Right. And it can be applied globally
as well, too. So your pain points, say, in real estate and entrepreneurship, is very similar to
those who are looking at education and AI, which is now heavily getting funded with the U.S.
government, but also pain points and situations that are happening in Germany in the automotive
industry. I'm looking at large catalogs, say for Mercedes-Benz or Porsche or other
companies out there, where they have vast amounts of data, but they don't have enough people
who have that intelligent business logic and reason to be able to take action in the real
time without having to get multiple people involved.
So let's talk about reason, because I think my own perspective of AI, and I'm not a,
I know nothing about AI, let's face it.
Okay.
The only caveat I think is I go to a place where I go, does everyone become mindless
because they start to rely on AI, right?
And I want you to either prove me wrong or agree or whatever.
I don't care.
But because I've seen so many of my friends, literally business owners, friends, everything
becomes chat GPT like everything and I go so no one's going to think critically for
themselves anymore so that's one of my questions towards this whole point but the other thought
is reason is what I believe AI doesn't have the critical the ability to critically reason like
a human would you are saying what you guys have created and have would have actual human like
reasoning correct and one of the areas
Because one of the ways that you're able, we are able to do that is because of the keyword empathy.
And when you're able to design algorithms or think about empathy coming into the equation, it gives different outputs that comes forth.
So going back to the first part of your statement, yes, everyone is using chat GPT.
I am someone that is very pro-AI.
Sure.
As somebody who did not know, exactly, but had no context in AI originally.
Yeah.
I became very pro-AI because I saw how efficient my life became.
But the real answer to your question is it actually boils down to the person and if they know their value and their worth.
So, for example, somebody being a founder and a CEO of a young AI company that's now worth $30 million.
By the way, you started a year and a half ago.
Exactly right.
You should be very proud of yourself.
I have a stellar team.
I'm proud of my team.
And that's another topic we can discuss as well, too, the essence.
of having to write people in the right seats makes a heck of a difference.
Absolutely.
But going back to the AI piece and the foundation that's there,
if a person does not know their own limitations, their own capabilities,
and cannot reasonably look at, let's say,
what is the amount of asks that I'm pumping into chat GPT
that takes away my business logic or critical assessment
that I should be making first and foremost before I need AI to supplement a topic?
it boils down to that person.
So I would throw the answer back or the question back to you
and even to your listeners, when you're assessing,
is this AI technology going to make us stupid in the future?
Are we going to all become dumb?
Are we all going to be dependent on AI?
It really boils down to the person's level of engagement with AI.
Number two, how do they value their own mental well-being and health?
Because you cannot rely on that in the long term.
There is a sense of level.
And it really depends on people.
are very proactive. They want to get into business, entrepreneurship, high level of, like
Maslow's hierarchy of means. You start to get that self-actualization and you've learned for
yourself and you're progressing. I don't really rely on chat GPT, but I may use it if I have to
write some emails, but I'm never allowing it to come in there and look at the business logic
and reason for me on my behalf. I may first do my assessments, but then I'll go there to see and validate,
okay, does this make sense?
Is this lining up with a good framework that I could use?
I would take a point from chat GPT and embedded in mine,
but that's how I still keep my brain sharp.
Yeah.
So now moving into what you guys have built at Cornerstone X,
you have the ability to create empathy within these avatars.
The metahumans, yeah.
And that is, so you guys have some pretty awesome clients,
and I don't know if you mention them or not,
but if you can, let's talk about them.
And you have some pretty awesome things on Horizon.
and that I've heard about, that seemed pretty awesome.
But those clients and or your clients,
they need to teach the avatar of the empathy?
Is it built in?
How does that work?
On our platform, there's a section inside there
where you can literally click and choose your metahuman.
I'm going to encourage you to use that term metahuman.
Okay, there you go.
But to use the metahuman skins, you can pick the hair, the size, the color, etc.
You can choose that.
But number two, and the layer of it,
of this cake that we're building, you're a super
metahuman, for example. The second
layer is a persona
that you give to the metahuman.
And that's where you hear about
prompt engineering, for example. You hear
about different ways that, okay, so
you stay in this framework. What if it goes off the
guardrails? How is it not going to hallucinate,
etc.? Right. When you give it some
really good persona frameworks
that's there, that's the key. If you get
software engineers and people really designing
and thinking those persona
of frameworks that's given behind AI MetaHumans, you unleash gold dust that's there
because it can be applied in so many different areas of a business.
So this can be applied to someone that has a $500,000 business or a $500 million.
I mean, literally, this will be utilized any company that needs support we can utilize Cornerstone
X.
Exactly right.
This is going to be, I mean, you literally are on the precipice of changing the world.
the clients, are you able to talk about your current clientele?
Absolutely.
So who are you guys currently working with?
Many.
And it's, so some of our clients are as small as a digital app.
Our first customer that really believed in us was a company called Valernet.
And the co-founders, one is actually in Orlando.
And this gentleman saw where we were going in the market about 10, 12 months ago.
Invested in our company, but also said I want to use it for my digital app.
Valernet is an app that's used for first responders, military.
veterans in the United States that are transitioning out of the workforce that they were a part of.
But now, in case they have any mental well-being or health issues that start to arise and come
forth, they can have access to Valernet. And Cornerstone X is the AI power for Valernet.
They are literally speaking to our technology, our metahuman, which is called hope, helping other
people efficiently. And the beauty of that is by creating a product,
that's named Hope, you're now able to distribute hope and give it to multiple people around the world.
So some of our clients are digital apps.
One of our large clients is the United States government, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs, and Border Protection.
And this is where I want to give a big shout out to CBP, Customs and Border Protection, the headquarters in Ashburn.
For many of the, I would say, officers there on the ground, but also the executive leadership that
really championed us on. They believed in the vision about 18 months ago and allowed us to
go to different airports and interview different officers to really find out what are those
pain points that the officers have as they are the first line responders to anybody coming to
the United States. After a lot of research and development with them, we had a whole list of
about 35 pages where we saw translation is a big issue. We saw that understanding and
comprehension, long wait times, having the officers be in front of a person that may not
understand English, but then it's a whole different subject that they need to be able to
convey to a person that's never come to the United States that helped us think about how we
intelligently design a metahuman, which is why the story for Cornerstone is really about
a year, but the first year was R&D and just being boots on the ground looking at pain points
that's there. Not only are we in the United States, but we also have alliance with giants in
Germany and in the UK now starting to expand and grow opportunities for us. So we've signed
10-year partnership deals, one with Hanselman and Company that's all in the automotive industry
and industrial goods industry. And another one is with Commercial Limited out in the UK. So
very, very proud of our team. And we head to the UAE for more meetings and expansion and growth
ideas and opportunities there i'm sitting here and i've done a lot of interviews i'm sitting here just
thinking like oh my god like what you've done and let's just call it two years really it's been what
a year year and a half yeah i mean you've beyond like you are the new coming like this is insane
of what you've been able to accomplish because and i want people to understand your background
but it's not like you were like around people that were like, oh, let me, you know, your parents
aren't the parents that like have the connection to the prime minister type of thing, right?
Like this is self-built from the beginning.
Like, so go into a little bit of your background.
Like, yeah, let's talk about like the concept of where this started.
But even just like who you are and what made you have this type of drive to get to where you're
at because if anything that someone who's a lifelong entrepreneur knows, like it is a very hard road.
None of it is easy.
Even when it's great and winning, it is easy to win, right?
And so let's go into a little bit of your background for a second.
So people understand, like, I mean, really that fucking anything's possible.
Absolutely.
So Justin, for me, I grew up not ever knowing a limit.
My parents raised me in a way to never see a limit in front of me.
Other than my height, I am petite, but other than my height.
You're a mighty mite as we were just discussing, right?
Exactly right. When you grow up in that framework of never knowing a limit, anything can be possible and achieved. So first and foremost, who am I? I'm a child of God. I'm a strong believer in Jesus Christ and I carry my faith with me no matter where I go because I lived a season of my life without it. And I know what unshakable faith looks like now, which is where this beautiful blessing and anointing that comes to me to impact people and to care about the person first started to become a part of my
DNA. So when you think of an entrepreneur's DNA in my shoes, I look like this. My parents were
two newcomers to Canada. So I'm from Toronto, born in Toronto, but my parents came from
Sri Lanka, flooding a civil war. Fleeing a civil war. Thank you. And when they came,
they had to start life with one suitcase in wintertime and leaving a tiny island, not knowing
what the outcomes would be. So they always raised.
to work hard, think about education, think about achieving, because that will end you or take you
out of a cycle of poverty that could be there. So my parents never had kids until nine years into
their marriage because they had to be smart with their money, start life, and start to grow.
Fast forward to part of my DNA formed, I never took a business background or never thought
about going into business because as a South Asian female, many people want us to go into
say medicine, go become an attorney, think about conventional careers that's there. So with my
attitude and mindset, I thought, let me try that, that my faith element started to come strong in
front of me. And I thought I would be a youth pastor or go into ministry or go along those lines
because I cared about people. I deeply do. That's a part of our ethos and our company and everything
that we do globally. And with that framework in mind, it helped me to build the foundation of who I am
today because I never want any of your listeners to ever be discouraged and to think that they
don't have a purpose or they don't know what's next or they don't know what their calling is.
And once I started to wake up to these dreams right at the beginning of COVID, I call it these
prophetic insights or divine encounters where I'm waking up to dreams and I'm thinking,
what are these black boxes?
What is a black box and what does this even look like?
one by one by one, I started to realize back at those times and dates, we were talking about
AI. And it takes a lot of guts and courage for someone to take their dreams and literally
try to build it out. No doubt. So I would love to see more entrepreneurs that's also in this
field taking those big risks, those sleep of fates, but also building their alliance with
giants, with people that truly have a vested interest in them. And also for the vision
that they have yeah i mean it's so important for people to understand like it's not always a bigger
more thought out plan sometimes you just go yeah yeah you have to start like you just you have a good
idea and you like i think it's a good idea i'm gonna go and you went and if if there's something people
can take from this and i need everyone to start following this human she is unbelievable on so many
different levels we're just talking about business and some of your background but like what you
are creating what you've created and what is happening in the world you're going to be a leader at the
forefront of this for a long long time so make sure we are following chantelle um and do you have a
handle like instagram or where would you like them to kind of go follow you and would be perfect
LinkedIn where would you like to follow that so shantale bacon on LinkedIn yeah c-h-a-n-l
bacon like the food um so getting back to kind of like that journey of like you went to school
for theology and here we are running technology straight technology and probably one of the
bigger in the space for the reasonable future how do you bridge that gap like I was an
English major and I went into business I feel like you could at least say like I don't know I need
to know how to talk well and write well like there's some components you could probably make an
argument theology to huge tech company that's not a total there's not much
of a bridge that you can point to. How did you do that?
For me, I saw the bridge.
Okay.
And the common denominator between both of those bridges or pieces of land, that common
denominator is people.
Sometimes many people underestimate philosophy or theology or liberal arts degrees that's
there. But that thought me how to think, and that thought me how to look at a person
to figure out what is their meaning, their morality, their destiny, and their virtues.
And when you see a person from that perspective, then it's very easy for you to build that relationship and care about a person first for the business dealing that is supposed to come out of it.
There's many elements in business that's replicated in theology, but it starts with people.
And I think this is where a lot of people tend to forget those elements when they're trying to scale and grow companies.
When they're trying to network, I don't really network. I don't need to network because I always believe.
leave an organic connections coming.
Yeah.
And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be.
Yeah.
And there's so many lessons learned, there's lessons that are earned.
And when people have that self-reflection of themselves, but they look to see in those
lessons that were earned, probably 90% or 95% of those lessons had to revolve around a
person.
And sometimes it's realizing, okay, what could it be done differently?
How could I have changed?
or if it was not the good fit, don't force that fit to happen.
And those are elements that you also learn in theology
when it's around a person's destiny in their life.
Where are they going when they die?
And those types of worldviews help me connect with people all over the world.
The German culture, European culture, South Asian culture, many areas,
which is why I could walk into rooms.
And let's say there's a shake in front of me.
I knew exactly how to greet them.
I knew exactly what worldview they had because I studied theology.
It doesn't matter if there's an atheist in the room or not.
It's just being able to respect them, but you have a commonality between you and that person that's naturally or organically built.
And that's how I built my business.
So there's two concepts.
And by the way, I don't even know how long.
Do we have a clock?
Flazmore running time.
What is the running time?
Oh, yeah.
Um, so when we get to 40, like, just give me a signal.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Just give me a signal when it's a 40 because I've seen like 40 to 45 is like my sweet spot.
Um, okay.
So we talked a lot about humans.
The dichotomy is you went into a tech business that from my outside perspective, you're almost
replacing humans with the technology.
How do you, like, where's the bridge on that?
Good question.
For me, I don't see it as replacing humans.
I see it as augmenting the way that a human can work using an AI tool.
Right.
That's there.
I'm not asking anybody to be dependent on a metahuman for as long as they have to live.
It has to be on 24-7, and that's the only thing you're talking to.
it actually becomes a business tool that could be used to help enhance a person's day
and take off a lot of the low-level tasks that's there and help a person like you,
focus on the high-level tasks where your time should be putting, going into, and creating impact.
As I ask and you answer, one of the thoughts I was even thinking is you're going to allow a lot of people
who do aspire to be an entrepreneur, the ability to be an entrepreneur.
because that service of being a service agent in my world is probably the hardest thing to hire, train, retain, financially compensate, keep them excited to be doing their job, like the service space of like the complaints or the challenges or the refunds or all these different things.
Trying to keep someone excited to be like the person on the phone dealing with those things of service is very challenging.
So as I asked that question, it wasn't posed to necessarily challenge the business.
It was more posed.
Like, I actually think you're going to open up the human ability to go for more with just some help, right?
In that amount of help is going to be huge.
I do want to get to, you didn't really have a business.
So I guess, let me take it this way.
I grew up in a place where I didn't know it.
I came to see it now.
I was always an entrepreneur.
So when I was a kid, I would, like, open up baseball card boxes in the store and sell back the better ones to the store owner.
It's in your DNA.
Right?
Yeah.
During recycling day, I would go and take my bicycle and I'd go get the bottles and cans, and I would take it to the recycling place because they would give me a penny or five cents.
Yes.
Like, I just, now I understand what I was doing.
Yeah.
Did you have any of that going through school growing up?
Like, because the, what I see is like almost this line that you just like went to school and you went to Oxford.
You went to incredible school.
You went for theology and then all of a sudden this massively successful businessperson technology.
Is there a bridge in that?
Because where I want the listener audience at least to see is sometimes it's just the idea that you're so passionate about that you just start going.
And if that is the answer, great.
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
but I'm a big advocate of people becoming entrepreneurs
because most people are dying inside with the job
and just the ability to feel
autonomy to do what you want when you want,
how you want, with who you want,
I think would help a lot of people's happiness, frankly.
Yes.
So talk about your journey a little bit on that.
So it's in my DNA as well.
And I didn't realize that until I hit my early 30s.
I'm 33 right now.
But I was 30 when I realized,
shoot, I've got to stop trying to apply for jobs or going into this, into academia, other
areas when I need to do what I'm naturally good at.
Yeah.
And a great saying that came to me when I was getting married from my husband, actually,
he'd said, sometimes in life you either become an entrepreneur or you end up working for one.
And that's when it hit me because I was running away from this calling.
I did not want to become an entrepreneur because it's not a traditional job that you're going to
see young females in their 20s taking that risk to dive into. So I had to stop running and
realize I have natural born instincts such as the same that you have as well. Sometimes when you
see things where, okay, I can flip this or I can get more revenue on at this or if I actually
invest in these areas, I can yield a better dividend in the future. It was all inside of me,
but I never had the courage to capitalize on that and to move.
And the main reason for me that made that shift is because my husband was in the area of private equity.
And I got a scholarship to come to the U.S. to do my doctorate in AI and technology.
Because all I studied was theology, and I thought, you know what, let me go try to study AI and go into this area.
So when I was in school, he was working for a big software company in Manhattan,
and the private equity division closed down.
So he was given X amount of weeks' notice for that.
But then we both looked at each other,
and he had seen those entrepreneurial traits within me
and gave me the courage to actually say,
you've got to dive into this.
Because every time, no matter where we're going,
you're either stepping up in leadership,
you're thinking about opportunities,
or trying to fix problems,
if you're a natural problem solver.
And I had no light in my eyes during that time.
There was no spark.
That is definitely different.
now. Correct. And that's because I found myself and I know my calling. And too many people walk
on the streets, New York City, L.A., Miami, Val Florida, where we're from, and don't have a reason
why they're there or they're just doing it for their paycheck, which for me, those are the things
that makes me upset. Yeah. So part of the things that I want to change about that is actually
creating this metahuman platform where we're going to be launching a partnership that comes out for
2006, allowing small businesses to actually utilize our technology and platform, but you can
co-create with it. And you get the autonomy to actually apply it in your businesses and use
it. And nonprofit situations and circumstances as well. Because I think that there are, there's a lot
of room for more entrepreneurs to play in. And remember that saying, it's either you become one or you
end up working for one. So everybody that is still in their nine to five job, they're working for
entrepreneurs. It all started somewhere. So you just talked about what's coming in 2026. What is
whatever you can mention? Like what's on the horizon? What are you currently working on? You're here
in Miami right now recording this. You have meetings tonight. What are the meetings about what's
what's moving forward here to finish this year? So I have and I want to do a shout out to our
incredible team at Cornerstone X. I am 33. Most of the executives in my team are maybe double
the age that I'm in or close, but I love working with them. Incredible, intelligent human beings.
So this evening, some of them are flying to Miami. We're all getting together in Sydney Isles
just to talk about the growth plan and strategy. It's coming for 2026 onwards. And then tomorrow
we're going to Fort Lauderdale meeting with her chief technology officer who's there and going
into a boardroom, whiteboarding, what's the roadmap for the product? What are the new features we want
embed into the technology and then starting to get ready to launch and travel to probably three
or four countries that's coming up in a few weeks so that was another thing how are you getting your
clients i mean your clients are you know like it's not like you have like a little you know cupcake
you know store like you have some major like the government right like how does that even come
about one gentleman oh it came through mentors i found good mentors and i found good for me i care about
faith like 100% because I've seen the difference between working with people who have
no faith background or upbringing and those who have that. And I found for me, I would credit
a lot of this to a mentor named Dave Wood, David Wood, who is in the Virginia area. But he
caught hold of my vision years before and tried to make opportunities or just try to give me
a lead, get to know a person. And he ended up sewing seeds in my life. And many of these
connections that now come forth are because of good mentors that saw growth in my life. I was
never perfect. Nobody's ever perfect. But I was able to grow from opportunities. And I treated people
with kindness and respect. And some people forget the follow-up. I did. I did for a number of
years. Some people forget to acknowledge emails. One of my pet peeves are when people don't take the
time to respond to an email because a human being has reached out to you, at least acknowledge it.
It took us a while to even get your email into the pipeline and then to book this meeting, here we are today.
And I'm learning to practice what I preach better, but also a lot of these leads and connections came from people that saw the proven track record of me delivering on what I said I would do.
They bought into that vision and then made the introductions.
There's a saying, but something about like you make more money through people than you do through your traditional methods.
is like the more hands you shake the more money you make right that's the classic saying i've
always believed it it's why i've built the community i've built is because when you do good by people
you offer value and create a win-win scenario the the doors open up for all opportunities right
and so you're just another example of leaning in to your resource which was at this guy dave wood
right and he leaned into him and he kept trying to offer assistance and you said hey i'm here
to make those connections, and one connection led to another and another.
You've done no, I mean, maybe it's different now, but for that first year to year and a half,
did you any typical classic style marketing?
No.
Is it all face-to-face shaking hands, kissing babies?
Exactly.
I don't have a PR team.
I don't have a marketing division.
And you're about to travel the world to do essentially the very same thing.
Hey, let's book a meeting with so-and-so company.
Let's go sit down in their boardroom.
I'll show them the vision.
You said something earlier that I meant to hit on, but.
you talk about stories you talk about stories and i think i know as someone who sells i know
stories sell and when you go into a meeting and you're able to show a story in a vision i mean there's
probably no one better right i mean if you put you against elon musk right now i'm going to say you're
going to win the sales debate you're going to win the client right um talk us through like what this kind of
journey, where is the bigger vision of what you are creating? Because I would love for people
to understand, like, the leaders in technology, the leaders in and I yourself, what's it all,
where are we all going with it? Where's your vision at least? Yeah. Great questions. That's right
there. It's, where am I going with this ideas and the technology? I'm taking it so it has a
global impact, number one. Number two, I want this technology.
to be used by every single culture
that's there on this world. Otherwise, I
haven't succeeded. And I have an
ambitious and audacious goal for that
to happen. But that's why
alliance with certain giants
and different billion-dollar companies
are now wanting to partner together.
Have you ever heard of Steve Jobs's
reality
distortion field? No.
Tell me more. I think you
have it. Okay. So he
is known. If you watch his biography
movie or read his book,
So I study like the greats, the people like really won in the big way, business wise.
Okay.
So he was known as having a reality distortion field.
Like the classic story is the glass at the Apple stores was glass that like was only coming out of China and was like a billion dollars per square foot or something.
And he just told us saying, no, we're going to make that happen.
But we're not going to pay those prices.
Go do it.
And he leaves the room.
And story after story after story of saying, no.
That's not accurate.
We can do it better and cheaper and whatever.
And you got this.
You're perfect.
Go get it done.
And somehow over and over and over again,
his team would find ways to get his reality to happen the way he wanted it.
And you're talking in a very reality distortion-filled way.
Like, I want it to be global.
I want it to impact every human on the planet.
I want, you know, in all these things.
And I just believe that that is capable.
if you can really believe it's doable right because it's been proven over and over again
and so you have that special characteristic Elon has a very similar thing all the greats
kind of have this distortion of what reality is like no that's impossible you can't you can't get
this global and you can't get this under the government who are you you're a theology major
you know what I'm we're going to do it so what sacrifices are you going to have to make
what are you willing to make to go get this to where you believe it needs to be?
Oh, that's such a great question.
I sacrifice a lot of time and I sacrifice a lot of money in the sense of I've actually not taken a paycheck in over two and a half years because I use my paycheck to fund many people to join the team and to come in.
And when you recruit top tier talent, those are exactly right.
So there's sacrifices where as a founder I have to be.
It's up to me. It's a choice that I have to make. But in order for this atopia or this distortion of, say, truth or the reality that's there in front of me, funny that you actually mention it because I actually live that. And I didn't even realize that I do that until you made this known to me. Because it goes back to what I said earlier, not knowing that you live in a limit. And I grew up in that mindset that nothing is really impossible. There's no such thing as a limit. Many people put artificial limitations on themselves. And I've
now come to the point where I don't sacrifice my health and well-being. I'm trying not to
sacrifice my family. Yeah. So my husband joins me on the road when we've got different speaking
engagement. So we're engaged with your husband, by the way. He is. He is. The Ben Bacon. Yes,
that's right. Irish background and from Minnesota. And he is my CEO for the company, really being
with me since the start, even could potentially be the co-founder alongside. But he gave up a lot. And he
sacrificed many things and time and jobs where he could have brought home the bacon, but instead
decided to join me in this endeavor. And it's really amazing to have a husband who has that
humility where he's willing to lay down the career, the ambition, and the drives that he
have to say, you know what, I'm going to come alongside my wife and support her and take this
vision forward. And with both of us together, it's just increase the opportunities that's come
forth. We're very blessed and grateful. You've done an incredible, I mean, you two should be incredibly
proud of what you guys have done. I mean, I've been around a lot of very successful individuals
and to have this type of meteoric ride, like a year and a half, two years most, and to be
working with the government and Oracle and these names that everyone's aware of.
NVIDIA is another one, too. We were at the NVIDIA conference earlier this year in San Jose,
and then going to Washington, D.C., to meet with NVIDIA very soon for other opportunities.
Incredible. I mean, you're in the right rooms. You've done the right thing.
what gets like what do you have to do internally what gets you fired up to say i got to go do this
because it's not easy to be able to say like it's almost like i'll say it in my ways like
fuck this i'm getting it done like you almost get so fired up like you want to run through a wall
yeah because that's what it's going to take to get to where you want to go what do you have to do
mentally spiritually do you have to go get fired up and hit the gym and cold plunge and do all
this stuff where do you have to go to a calm place and meditate and breathe where do you go to
kind of get this gumption to go i'm going truth is i actually go to the bible and i go to the bible
because that's where this discernment and wisdom has actually really come from sometimes when i
really need that inspiration i'm not listening to tony robins or other people that are out there in
the industry but i go back to like the ancient texts such as king solomon
for example has anybody ever studied king solomon's business plan i would that's my challenge
and my gauntlet i'm going to throw to you go back and study king solomon's business plan and see
how he conquered empires dynasties kingdoms who's the most wealthiest man in this in the world yeah
and just going back to read and see the lessons that they've all learned that teaches me
something every single day and i need to be in a quiet place
They do go to my backyard and just stop, unplug for a little while, get better at journaling and writing from the notes that I see in the Bible.
But all of my business gold nuggets are from the Bible, 100%.
Offline, we can talk about this if you'd like.
That's a great answer.
So, and we'll leave it here, but I think I get asked, what is my morning routine more than any question?
So I will give it to you.
What is your morning routine to wake up energized every single day?
6.30 alarm rings. I snuggle with my husband and have to force myself to get out of bed because I know by 645, if I'm up, I'm out, brushing teeth, dressed, ready within 15 minutes. And 7 a.m., my sister calls me. I spend 15 minutes with her. So she is Charlene Saffey in New York City, works at Columbia University in the medical ethics department there. And she calls me every day for 15 minutes. So she can give me a quick update. And I share not.
update and we pray together. And this bond between two sisters praying together also helps me
to bring compassion into the work field and the workforce that's there. 715 onwards meetings
back to back to back. Sometimes I don't stop on Zoom until 4 p.m. And then at the 4 p.m. mark,
it's literally back to back to back where I have to sneak a bite in if I can, 4 p.m. onwards,
done, and then stop to meditate, to reflect, to check in with my husband, go for a bike ride,
a little bit of a workout or swimming at that time frame, and then the evening shift begins.
Our team is in India, our team's in England in the UK, and now growing in Germany.
So I've got to be available in different time zones that's there.
That's a whole different level of complexity.
Oh, I'm in commitment.
Yeah?
I have something that is really important to me, and I call it the five laws of success.
Curious what you think about them.
first you have to decide what you want and then who you need to be to get what you want
because you have to be in alignment with what you want two you got to commit to it three you got
to take massive action blind action wrong action correct action action action action
for being incredibly uncomfortable because every time you hit a new level of something
it's brand new so you've never been there before so that's incredibly uncomfortable
and number five don't put a time expectation on the results you're trying to achieve so you just
say you want this to be global you want this to impact every human on the planet if you would
have said any level of time limitation, the podcast episode would have changed because then I would
have started challenging you. Yeah. Because I believe just by sitting with you for the last
hour, you're going to achieve this. I believe with everything in me. Thank you. But if you would have
said, I'm going to go do it in a year or two years or five years or 10th, anything, then we would
have had a challenging conversation because I would have challenged your belief that it was going
to happen in a time frame. Why can't it just happen as fast as you can possibly make it happen?
Correct. And that's where in entrepreneurship, if we've got a couple minutes, something I do want to say to your listeners is in entrepreneurship, many times we're thinking about the exit, many time we're thinking about, okay, we want to get an M&A, we want to sell this, we want to the next, next, next thing that's there. But my CFO named Ali Pierboy, he taught me an exit comes, but it's a byproduct of doing the right thing. And all you need to do is for,
focus every single day on doing the right thing, making the right ethical decision, choosing
not to partner with people because you know their motives or where the money is actually
coming from. You have to do the right thing every day. The next thing comes as a byproduct of
it, which is why I never timebound myself, never timebound myself. And that's a simple mistake
that many entrepreneurs do. Chantelle Bacon, this has been great. It is. This was very fun.
this episode.
LinkedIn, is that the best place to find you or you want to have them go to the website
or anything else that you want to?
LinkedIn is perfect.
Reach out there.
They're always looking for partnerships, looking for new opportunities, starting to expand
in other countries, use cases that's there if people want pilots, even willing to talk about
what a free pilot looks like if needed be, but to have those conversations and start to make
organic connections.
And I'm also very passionate about South Florida as I've moved here.
So always looking to grab a cup of coffee or speak to very.
interesting people along the way.
Everybody, make sure you give her a follow on LinkedIn.
Contact her. She's incredible. Her husband, Ben, is incredible.
You are going to achieve this for sure, knowing you for all of an hour.
I can just see it. I can tell. Great job. You should be very proud of yourself.
Thank you. And I'm proud of everyone in my team as well. And thank you for the opportunity,
Justin. Really, really appreciate it.
Yeah. Guys, if this was pretty cool and you think there's a couple of people that'd like to know her
or just interested in AI and where this is going, share this with at least two of your friends.
I'd appreciate it. See you on the next episode. Peace.