Leveraging AI to Strengthen Human Connections with Josh Katz

Building strong relationships is about creating the foundation long before you need it.

This week, we’re joined by Josh Katz, founder of Knostra, a platform designed to help people build and maintain relationships more effectively using AI. Josh’s career has been centered around partnerships, and today, he’s focusing on how we can expand our circles authentically, without losing the human touch in a tech-driven world.

In this conversation, we dive into why personalization doesn’t equal being personal, the importance of context and timing in business relationships, and how AI can amplify human connection rather than replace it. Josh shares his insights on building meaningful relationships at scale, and how the right systems can transform your ability to connect, follow through, and build trust over time. It’s a must-listen for anyone looking to deepen their professional relationships, both inside and outside the office.

What you’ll learn:

• How AI can enhance, not replace, meaningful human connections in business
• The importance of creating a system to stay connected and follow through
• Why personalization is not the same as being personal, and how authenticity drives trust

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Introduction

(03:23) The problem with relationship systems

(06:11) Why context and timing matter

(09:39) Personalization vs. being personal

(12:40) Using AI to amplify relationships

(16:59) The importance of context in communication

(19:26) Balancing sales goals and authentic relationships

(23:11) How Knostra enhances relationship-building efforts

(27:43) Why relationships are the ultimate business differentiator

(32:10) The value of maintaining personal vs. corporate information

(36:10) Navigating the tension between business and personal trust

(39:40) How AI can help businesses scale relationships

(43:10) Josh's journey from idea to business

Connect with Josh Katz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshkatz/ 

Check out Knostra: https://knostra.ai/ 

Check out Arcadia: https://www.BeArcadia.com  

Connect with Sam Yarborough: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-yarborough/ 

Connect with Jason Yarborough: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yarby/ 

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

https://www.shareyourgenius.com 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Katz: personalization is not the same as being personal. You know, we have automated so many things in our businesses, our email, our outreach, marketing, all of these things.

[00:00:11] Josh Katz: we implemented technology and automations to help us do that. And from a volume perspective, it works. From an authenticity perspective, it doesn't, ​ Today's guest is pretty great a, he's a good friend of ours. We've known him now for a couple of years. He's been to a couple of Arcadias, but it's interesting because, you know, we're a relationship podcast. 

[00:00:58] Sam Yarborough: True. 

[00:00:59] Jason Yarborough: And he's building a relationship tool. He's using the power of AI to help us build better, stronger relationships.

[00:01:06] Sam Yarborough: Mm-hmm. 

[00:01:06] Jason Yarborough: And I'm pretty stoked about it because at the end of the episode, he let us know where the inspiration for his company came from, and it came from. Our last event, which was inspired by our last podcast guest, Erica. So I think that's pretty fun. 

[00:01:21] Sam Yarborough: Full circle. 

[00:01:22] Jason Yarborough: Full circle moment there. It's Arcadia, but, uh, we've got Josh Katz with us today.

[00:01:27] Jason Yarborough: He's, uh, from the partnership world, former VP of partnerships from a couple of great companies. Mm-hmm. Now started out on his own company, Knostra should check it out. K-N-O-S-T-R-A in the 

[00:01:39] Sam Yarborough: show notes. 

[00:01:40] Jason Yarborough: In the show notes. I was just thinking if I could spell it live. Oh, with pressure. I think I did it. 

[00:01:45] Sam Yarborough: I think you did it 

[00:01:46] Jason Yarborough: Knostra.

[00:01:46] Jason Yarborough: But, uh, Josh, good friend, 

[00:01:49] Sam Yarborough: great friend. I also, um, learned a little bit about barbecue. He's from St. Louis. Um, so if you're interested in that, stay tuned. 

[00:01:58] Jason Yarborough: I mean, a show about relationships in barbecue. I mean, well, I'm, I'm in. Sign me up. 

[00:02:03] Sam Yarborough: Well, with that, I hope you enjoy the show with Josh. He's a great friend.

[00:02:07] Sam Yarborough: Go follow him and we'll see you next time friends. 

[00:02:10] Jason Yarborough: See.

[00:02:11] Jason Yarborough: Friends, family, we're back. We're doing it. We have another friend here. This, we actually do have a friend here today. I love when we can actually bring, uh, friends onto the show and friends who are no strangers, uh, to the show or to, uh, you know, our lives. Sam, hello from upstairs,

[00:02:25] Sam Yarborough: Good to see you.

[00:02:28] Jason Yarborough: Josh Katz. Hello from, uh, across the, the country.

[00:02:30] Jason Yarborough: Welcome to the podcast,

[00:02:31] Josh Katz: Hello from St. Louis. Uh, excited to be here guys. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:36] Jason Yarborough: we haven't been to St. Louis in a while. I did like it that one time we were there. Sam had some really good margaritas.

[00:02:40] Sam Yarborough: Yeah. St. Louis is known for their margaritas.

[00:02:44] Josh Katz: we, we do have tequila and ice.

[00:02:46] Jason Yarborough: I love it. I love it. All right, so let's, let's, let's jump in. You're, You're, now somewhat in the, the business of relationships, if I may, we'll talk about that here in a second. But our big thing is that a lot of companies say they're relationship. But I think very few actually operate that way. Whether or not it's a, it's a nice thing to say to make people feel good about doing business with 'em or not. But start there. Let's start where most businesses kind of fail with getting relationships, right, or maybe not fail. What do they get wrong about relationships?

[00:03:19] Josh Katz: Well, let's start with it's most times not their fault. 

[00:03:23] Sam Yarborough: Who's they? The business or

[00:03:25] Josh Katz: the businesses. Yes. Um, what we're seeing right now is the, the, the problem is we don't have a system for relationships that help us to know when is the right time, equip us with the right context and then. In a perfect world, help us to actually do that outreach.

[00:03:44] Josh Katz: And I don't mean on our behalf. Um, there's certainly platforms where we can automate any number of actions and do outreach to a large number of people, but what I believe is that. That that level of, of AI and outreach is, is, is accelerating so fast that what it will do is, is produce a reversion back to this people talking to each other and what in order for that to produce outcomes, you know, context, timing, intent, all become really important.

[00:04:14] Josh Katz: And our, our current systems are, are simply not. Set up to deliver that. Certainly not at the right time or in most cases to help you take those actions. And so what we're building at Knostra is essentially a, a, a context infrastructure layer for relationship driven work. And the problem is, is that, we, people are the system right now and that is not gonna work.

[00:04:38] Josh Katz: Our brains are not built. To maintain 500 or 5,000 relationships at the same time, they simply are not. And so what we're trying to do is help people to expand their circles authentically while keeping people in the loop. And using this wonderful new technology that we have to produce opportunities for them to reach out, provide them with the context of why this is important and, and, and what to say when they reach out.

[00:05:08] Josh Katz: Help them create that outreach, get their approval, and then, and then act on their behalf. So we're just trying to amplify people's ability to leverage their intent and use the context that lives in our brains that. Even the best of us can't keep it all in, so that's what we're trying to do.

[00:05:26] Jason Yarborough: I'm curious, um, to go back to something you mentioned is like we don't have the systems. So in the context of building relationships and maybe even the context of, you know, business relationships or relationships in general. In general, in kind of your research and building your company, have you kind of come across like, what are some standardized systems?

[00:05:46] Jason Yarborough: Like what does it take, is what I'm asking to like actually build relationships? Like what are those things in order to get to the point where you can say like, yes, I've got a relationship with this person.

[00:05:56] Josh Katz: Yeah, I mean there's certainly some science around it and plenty of data that that verifies and validates that, um, when you have trust in a relationship, it produces outcomes. And so I won't go too deep into that, but when you ask about tools, the tools that we're using today, whether it's a a CRM or email calendar, AI assistance, et cetera, um, they work, but they're for storing information typically.

[00:06:25] Josh Katz: And again, we the human. Is still that integration layer. We're the ones that have to correlate all the context from all those systems to know why, who should I be talking to today? What should I be doing? What should I be saying? Why is this important? And that's scattered across all of these systems that we have, which on their own are very viable.

[00:06:47] Josh Katz: Um, but they don't really help us to, to nurture and maintain relationships. And so by capturing. Context around all of your communications with people from those systems and supplementing it with conversations like this where we learn about people, what's important to them, what, what are they looking forward to?

[00:07:08] Josh Katz: What, what did we talk about last year? And use all of that as context in our future communications. It, it, it really is, is a, a huge level up.

[00:07:18] Sam Yarborough: I wanna ask your opinion on this, Josh, because I feel like this has been something people have been trying to solve since the dawning of business. Um, business is done with relationships and I think that. We've all gotten personalization, quote unquote outreaches that are like, I see you went to a SU Me too.

[00:07:38] Sam Yarborough: Let's do business together. So how can we, in your opinion, like maintain these authentic relationships without getting over the top on personalization that doesn't land and it erodes trust.

[00:07:55] Josh Katz: the easiest way to explain it is just get rid of the isation. Um, personalization is not the same as being personal. And I think that that is the difference that we're talking about here. You know, we have automated so many things in our businesses, our email, our outreach, marketing, all of these things.

[00:08:17] Josh Katz: And in many cases, it truly was, was a crutch. It was because we wanted to reach out to more people and we couldn't. By ourselves. And so we implemented technology and automations to help us do that. And from a volume perspective, it works. From an authenticity perspective, it doesn't, and that's part of the thesis that, that we have at Knostra is like, this is gonna get worse.

[00:08:42] Josh Katz: AI's making it easier and easier to personalize, um, our communications and our interactions. And so what will become. the truly valuable thing is real personal interactions using context. And so, you know, the most valuable work that we do isn't in our systems. It, it lives between those systems, between the CRM and the calendar and all of that stuff.

[00:09:09] Josh Katz: And so again, there, there's a human element to all this, and that's where the follow through becomes tough. Because we're trying to manage our personal lives, our professional lives, and all this stuff in our brain, and we lose the context and the timing and the continuity, the rhythm of it all. And so that's what we're, we're trying to do is be that context and and continuity layer that turns all these scattered signals into situational awareness and, and readiness for that next step, but with always with the person in control.

[00:09:39] Jason Yarborough: part of it too is like, as far as like how you, you scale, right? The relationship factor. It's like, it's, it's tough because if you think about it from a salesperson's perspective, right? They're, they have to balance, you know, how to authentically build a relationship with, you know, their. Contact, but they've also got a balance, you know, pipeline reporting and, you know, high expectations of hitting numbers and stuff like that. So like, how do you, how do you suggest using a tool like yours, which we'll dive deeper into that here in a minute, to, to kind of bring, make that balance more authentic, to use your words when you're, you know, managing a deal plus also trying to, you know, effectively build a relationship to build that trust.

[00:10:24] Josh Katz: our answer is both. Um, we're not a CRM replacement. We're not trying to be a CRM replacement and there certainly is a need for that, that activity level reporting and, you know, team, team aggregation of data for the purpose of an org. Um, but we can superpower. What you're doing in those systems by providing this contextual error on top.

[00:10:50] Josh Katz: So, you know, people, a lot of people work out of a CRM or, or claim to, you know, my experience when I, when I talk to enterprises adoption is, is very, very low. And it even in, in their. Best days, um, people are still not putting in this personal and contextual information that is so important for developing relationships.

[00:11:13] Jason Yarborough: Yeah. 

[00:11:14] Josh Katz: I, think I'm really good at remembering things about people. I'm intentional about it. I try to do it because it's important to me. And when the reason I created Knostra is because I know that my brain cannot. Do this as effectively as I would like. And I don't wanna send out 6,000 emails today that have, you know, some unpersonal message to people.

[00:11:36] Josh Katz: I wanna encourage people to, to leverage the trust that they're building with people and maintain those relationships and have more of them. Um, I'm not telling them to drop their current tech stack. I'm trying to make it better.

[00:11:50] Sam Yarborough: Okay, so I have a question that's kind of maybe a doozy. I don't know. We, you and I talked about this a little bit, but I, I would consider all three of us on this call to be, Good relation people, relationship people. Um, we care. We try to show up when we can and yes, we definitely fall short just like you've said, like it's hard to keep up with all of it. Sometimes though, when we get put in these company situations and the only thing that the company cares about is revenue pipeline and the bottom line, which is fine, they should, it's a business. They're often asking us to call on your network and sell everything you can. That can erode trust pretty quickly. So, let's talk about that for a second. Like you, you know, I think one of the things of KKnostra that's really interesting you just said it, is putting in all this personal context around these people. So for instance, Jason lives in Montana. He has three kids, His wife is Sam, like, you know, even, but even furthermore, like his birthday is ex, his social security.

[00:12:52] Sam Yarborough: Just kidding. I'm not kidding.

[00:12:55] Jason Yarborough: We give it away all here.

[00:12:56] Sam Yarborough: We'll see who's actually listening. But all this stuff that like is actually really relevant to having a personal conversation with Jason, but I don't necessarily wanna share with my company because the relationship is between me and Jason, not company and Jason. So let's talk about that for a second.

[00:13:12] Sam Yarborough: Like, how do we maintain trust with our company while not eroding it with our personal connections?

[00:13:19] Josh Katz: I'm smiling so big because I don't know if I've actually told you about this yet, and if not, you're just so on point and if so, great prompt. Um, we have two components of how we store information in Knostra. You have a personal vault. You have a corporate vault, and this exists for two reasons. One, as Jason stated, there's lots of activity based information and reporting that is really important to get back into these corporate systems for any number of reasons, for marketing, use cases, for managerial oversight, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:13:50] Josh Katz: There's also information that no store will want out of the CRM. And so it's really important to have that integration, um, that that enables us to push and pull those, those information from Knostra to your CRM. At the same time, there's personal information that you may want to have, that you may not want to put to a CRM.

[00:14:12] Josh Katz: So, for example, and this is not accurate, but if I were to share with you that I was a recovering alcoholic, you may wanna store that in Knostra so that you don't send me a, a bottle of wine, um, as a, as a Christmas gift, or invite me to our investor meeting at abar or something like that, but it's not necessarily information that you'd wanna put into a CRM.

[00:14:35] Josh Katz: And so we, we do have the ability to segment that personal knowledge, not, not the, the stuff that comes from the company or that is related to the transactions of the deals themselves, so that it can still be used for context and servicing the next best actions, without crossing that line.

[00:14:52] Sam Yarborough: I do have another follow up question on that.

[00:14:55] Josh Katz: Can I dig back in on something you said right before that? Because it was really, it was really pertinent and you said, you know, we're in these jobs and they say, just hammer your network. And you said, and that gets uncomfortable or use a different word. But that was the gist of it. what occurred for me is why is it uncomfortable?

[00:15:16] Josh Katz: Because if you truly were maintaining those relationships, it may not be uncomfortable for you to then reach out to those partners for referrals or those people who can provide the introduction. And that's the whole point of this, is that we have that guilt that, oh man, I'm gonna see this person tomorrow at a conference and I, I should have reached out a month ago, or I said I was gonna do something.

[00:15:40] Josh Katz: And even though I know that they'll still be my friend, I didn't do it. It, it hits you at a certain moment. And this layer that we're building is designed to prevent that thing. Exactly. And so if we do our job right, um, and we keep our relationship strong, maybe it wouldn't be uncomfortable for you to reach out to referral partners when you get pressed by, by your manager.

[00:16:05] Sam Yarborough: Yeah, I think for me it's the, like, I take my relationships really seriously and I don't want to, take advantage of them by. Overselling things that they may not need or the timing's not right, or whatever. And I think when you look at somebody with a network, quote unquote, and your exec team is like, well, you haven't brought in any leads from said network or whatever, which probably isn't true. It's like, okay, well I know that Sally's having a baby and now is not the right time. I know that so and so is thinking about leaving their job. Like whatever those types of things are. And sometimes the sale doesn't make sense, but from an executive perspective it's like, well, why not? And so that's kind of part of the conversation.

[00:16:54] Josh Katz: You are talking about two concepts, timing, and um, context.

[00:16:59] Josh Katz: So with, if you don't have both of those things, it's noise, like timing without context is just noise and context. Without timing, it's good intentions. So like it, that's why it's so important to bring those things together. Um, that information that you have, that context, that's everything, you know, that's exactly why it wouldn't be appropriate for you to reach out at that exact moment to that person.

[00:17:27] Josh Katz: And that's as valuable as as anything else, 

[00:17:29] Sam Yarborough: Okay. I wanna ask you about partnership specifically, because I think a lot of people, this might be a touchy subject for people, and everybody has varying opinions on this, but

[00:17:39] Jason Yarborough: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:41] Sam Yarborough: are a relationship business.

[00:17:42] Sam Yarborough: when they start it. Person to person, like Jason goes and builds a partnership, a relationship with his partner, account manager at Knostra,

[00:17:54] Sam Yarborough: and that relationship is then between Jason and Josh until it becomes further, until it becomes Knostra is a huge revenue driver for this company.

[00:18:07] Sam Yarborough: The question being. How do we make sure that the relationships stay with the company when Jason leaves? 

[00:18:16] Josh Katz: It's two things now. One, what does Jason keep when he leaves, and what does the company keep when he leaves? Because both are important.

[00:18:26] Josh Katz: And so yeah, the company needs to have access to the interactions, the cadence, the timing. Um.

[00:18:34] Josh Katz: Potentially some of the content and, you know, touch points, all, all of the stuff that you would typically track for purposes of metrics. Um, but that personal context that Jason and I have developed in real life and also in this hypothetical, um, a lot of that, as I said before, that's Jason's, that's his relationship with me.

[00:18:58] Josh Katz: It's, we're creating this. So Jason. And for the benefit of the company he works at conform stronger relationships GE by generating trust that will ultimately produce the outcomes that he's looking for and his company is looking for. Those are, there's personal and corporate outcomes. Um, and Jason and, and my relationship both in real life and in this hypothetical, are not gonna be based on just closing a deal.

[00:19:26] Josh Katz: Like, if that's what we're talking about, we're talk, we're having the wrong conversation. Um, and you know, that's why I'm not focusing on, you know, necessarily people who sell widgets or people who work at companies that are product led. Like we're like, literally it's a transaction as opposed to a relationship.

[00:19:45] Josh Katz: And so we've decided to focus into industries where it's typically a longer sales cycle. The sale is very much trust based. Uh, credibility is extremely important, and those deals typically, like you said, take longer. They involve more stakeholders and context and timing becomes even, even more important.

[00:20:06] Jason Yarborough: in the context of relationships, if I'm. Doing my job right. And I'm, and if we think about it in the context of friendships, if I'm doing my job, then I'm introducing my team to you and your team, and they're beginning to work together. They're beginning to kinda build their own relationship, establishing their own trust. Uh, they're putting the necessary time in which is a important factor into

[00:20:28] Jason Yarborough: any relationship. Like what kind of time can you give to it? Um. And if I'm doing that side of my job, then like, yeah, I'm, I'm helping expand those relationships so that it doesn't sit inside of, you know, just my head, my KKnostra, my world, et cetera.

[00:20:42] Jason Yarborough: Like it allows someone else to actually benefit by, you know, what you said in the very beginning, it's like helping make their circles bigger.

[00:20:49] Josh Katz: Yeah, it's less, you know, overload on your brain and more consistent follow up, and it really amplifies because that person that you're. Feeling nervous about reaching out to 'cause too much time has passed, or maybe you didn't follow through on a commitment or something like that. Guess what? When you do it, you're not just opening one door, you're opening two because guess what?

[00:21:13] Josh Katz: They're probably feeling the same way and they may have wanted to reach out to you for something meaningful or to offer you a referral or to ask for one, and that door seemed closed. And so the more doors that we open in this way, um, it really starts to to accelerate.

[00:21:30] Jason Yarborough: Exactly. Okay. So Knostra, you mentioned a few times coming to your building. Um, talk to us about like what Knostra is, but in the context of like how you would tell a friend not in startup terms.

[00:21:47] Josh Katz: simple talk. You know, I would be at a conference or a bar or Christmas party or dinner or whatever and meet somebody interesting like. Jason Yarborough and we'd have a great conversation and he would tell me about his wife, Sam and his kids and what he's passionate about. And he'd say, yeah, let, I wanna talk to you about the thing that you're asking about.

[00:22:10] Josh Katz: Um, but I, I've got a lot going on with closing out the year. Can we talk, um, in January? And I'd say, yes. It was so great to to chat with you. And I would leave, I'd pull out my phone, I'd hit the side button. And start talking. I'd say, Hey, Knostra, create a, a contact for Jason Yarborough. I'd drop in, just do a brain dump, just like I just did, I'd say, remind me, in two weeks, Jason mentioned his team's hiring.

[00:22:34] Josh Katz: I offered an, an intro to another person that I know. Um, boom, done. That note goes off into the ether, but there was 10, 15 pieces of information that were in it. Two weeks later when I wake up, instead of opening up my CRM, I'll see a nice little red notification from Knostra and it'll say, morning briefing.

[00:22:54] Josh Katz: I'll say, Hey, Josh, I've got five things to cover with you this morning. I need your decisions on, are you ready? I'll say, yeah, and we'll be having a, a voice conversation or you can do it via chat and, uh, it'll say you, you had a great chat with Jason on the 19th of December. Um. You need to follow up with him today.

[00:23:13] Josh Katz: Um, KKnostra would create that, that content, whether it was a text or an email based on how we communicate with the context from all that information that I put in there in a draft. That sounds like how I write. And I would have a decision to either send it, edit it, maybe maybe the email didn't mention his beautiful wife, Sam, and I'd say, Hey, make sure you say hi to Sam for me as well.

[00:23:35] Josh Katz: It would rewrite it, then I send it. and so the idea is, is that it identifies opportunities, it surfaces them at the right time.

[00:23:45] Josh Katz: It prepares the outreach, it gets my approval, and then it takes action. So one tap I approve, and guess what? Relationship stays warm.

[00:23:54] Jason Yarborough: Very cool. What does, uh, what does Knostra mean? Who'd that name come from?

[00:23:59] Josh Katz: at its root 'cause I'm really into Latin. 'cause I know three Latin words. Um,

[00:24:04] Jason Yarborough: Oh, you're proficient.

[00:24:06] Josh Katz: it means ours. Um, but for me it, it really has more of a making people feel known and seen. Like what do you know about people? Um. And there's certainly the, the Knostradamus component of it as well because it is predictive.

[00:24:25] Josh Katz: And, um, and so all of that, you know, our relationships, predicting the right time and the right messaging, um, and showing people that you know who they are. Um, that's really what it means to me. 

[00:24:38] Sam Yarborough: Okay. I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk about the unspoken side of this a little bit. Um, you're building a business and. There's a lot that goes into that. So let's talk about the moment that that started. Like I know that there were a few job changes and whatnot, but this was like a conscious decision for you to go, go all in on this and build, um, what were the factors to help you make that decision?

[00:25:09] Sam Yarborough: Like, why, why now? Why this versus just going back and getting another job.

[00:25:15] Josh Katz: there was kind of a two or three different elements that really, really catalyzed this. So, one. This is what I'm passionate about. Um, I love showing up for people. I love making them feel like I remember them and what we talk about and who they are, and thinking of creative ways to help them. And that's just what I love to do and I feel very grateful that I get to do that in business as a, as a partnership professional, uh,

[00:25:40] Sam Yarborough: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:41] Josh Katz: doing that at a. Larger level is something that I've tried to fold into my previous roles and it's been effective, but we simply, I simply lacked a system to do it effectively. And so when I left my last role, there were a few things that were top of mind for me. One. Um, I've worked in, in AI and, and in some larger tech companies and formed partnerships with all kinds of different companies, and most recently for A-A-C-R-M for focused into mortgage and banking.

[00:26:14] Josh Katz: And so there was a huge gap there. And I, and I, I realize that the systems that we have today, I, I believe we're moving in the wrong direction. I think they're moving more toward AI acceleration, automations, really removing the human element. And so when I sat down to think about what that meant. Honestly, it, it meant that I was gonna be stronger.

[00:26:34] Josh Katz: It meant that the, the relationships that I have, I, I look at that as a competitive advantage. If everyone else is gonna rely on automation, I still have access to the same technology as they do. And so that was where the idea started is how can I use this powerful technology that we didn't have access to 18 to 24 months ago to prepare people?

[00:26:56] Josh Katz: For when human relationships and communication will be the differentiator, I believe it already is today, but I believe this will become so much more obvious and evident and inevitable, um, that technology like Knostra will not just be something you put on top of your CRM. It will be your, your layer that you use.

[00:27:23] Josh Katz: To interact with all of your technology. It will be the, the way you teach technology, who you are, how you write, how you talk, what's important to you, and how you wanna relate to people. And so I can't think of a bigger mission than that. Um, and the timing of it with my partner, Tony, worked out perfectly.

[00:27:43] Josh Katz: He's somebody who I implicitly trust our, our relationship grow organically over the years. We've worked together for the past few years. And, and our mission is very, very aligned on this, that it's not just touchy feely. We want people to have strong relationships. Kind of like what you said, everyone thinks they're a relationship person.

[00:28:02] Josh Katz: Um. But there's a big difference between being liked and being trusted, and that's where business outcomes come from, is that trust likability can get you in a door, but trust is what will get that, that contract signed. And so Tony's been really helpful. Uh, as you guys know, I, I've got a lot of ideas and sometimes need someone to reign me in.

[00:28:26] Josh Katz: And so Tony has, Tony and I have just been working together really well on that. And. That's where it started for me was wanting to take what I think I do well do it better, and then share it with others.

[00:28:40] Jason Yarborough: I know you're early, but like up to this point, like what's been the hardest thing about getting this company off the ground?

[00:28:46] Josh Katz: Education, probably educating, uh, people on what this is. Um, you know, we, we've all become so accustomed to legacy tech that we want to put it into one of those boxes. Is it a CRM? Is it sales enablement? Is it, you know, a PRM for keeping track of your personal relationships? And, um, it's, it's really none of those things in all of those things.

[00:29:09] Josh Katz: And I just, um. I think that that's been a, a challenge. You know, everyone likes the idea, but ultimately for us, it will, it will come down to how do we show that this produces meaningful results for people?

[00:29:23] Jason Yarborough: as you're building a relationship, you know, sort of product, do you find yourself like. Studying the psychology of relationships more, or do you find yourself more studying, like running a business more?

[00:29:34] Josh Katz: I think it was Will Taylor, who, who said this best when he was talking about working in the business versus working on the business. And, um, you have to do both. And so yes, there's this concept that I've been trying to really go pretty deep into and it's, it's, I think it's called Dunbar's Circles, but it talks about the.

[00:29:56] Josh Katz: The science behind the number of relationships that we can maintain simultaneously. And I, I think that that really is the clearest explanation of, of the problem that we're trying to solve. And I just don't think that this problem was really solvable two years ago. And so I do think we're early, um, and you know.

[00:30:19] Josh Katz: We're, we're gonna focus this into, uh, mortgage and real estate initially, and, uh, that's, that's where we believe we have an enormous amount of, of trust built up already. There's high repetition of deals, there's huge databases of past clients, and so, um, relationship moments actually move revenue and then we will expand out from there to.

[00:30:42] Josh Katz: You know, partnerships and sales professionals more generally, other industries like insurance and coaching and PE and VC and legal and all of that, because these are all places where trust and relationships really drive outcomes and those outcomes are meaningful 

[00:30:59] Sam Yarborough: you just said something that I think is true and changing every day about how this problem wasn't solvable two years ago. I wanna hear your perspective on the capabilities available to building a business right now. Like I've known you for two years and. I'm gonna make an assumptive statement, but you're not a coder. I think ideas have so much more momentum now and possibility behind them just due to the technology. So talk about that and kind of how you've leveraged the moment that we're in for your ability to build.

[00:31:36] Josh Katz: I can only imagine how much it would've cost and how hard it would've been to build what we're building now. Three to five years ago, and I worked for an a AI company three to five years ago. And so I actually do know how hard some of this was to build at that time. Um, and you're correct, I'm not a builder.

[00:31:53] Josh Katz: Um, I know just enough of these fancy tech words to be dangerous and, and make a, a developer that I'm working with a little bit nervous that I may have pushed the envelope a bit too far. Um,

[00:32:06] Josh Katz: that's right. Um, but yes, we have a very tech forward stack. I mean, even the CRM that we're using is, is a newer, is a newer one that actually has been really great for us.

[00:32:17] Josh Katz: You know, when, when people compare us to a CRM, I'm like, we're not, if we're not organizing content contexts, we're, we're operate operationalizing context or meaning. 

[00:32:27] Jason Yarborough: How do

[00:32:28] Jason Yarborough: you action that that that content or those

[00:32:30] Jason Yarborough: contacts. 

[00:32:31] Josh Katz: modern tech stack. We're definitely using some, some vibe coding to get some of these ideas to a point where we can discuss them, visualize them, and then potentially operationalize them.

[00:32:43] Josh Katz: Um, there's been some really large learnings on my side of what falls under a technical leader and what just falls under the general bucket of a founder of things that need to get done because you just started a company. Um, and so I've been learning new. New software just because I have to, and I need to be able to track feedback from users and understand how the, our LLMs are interacting with, with the, uh, requests that are coming into the system and stuff like that.

[00:33:13] Josh Katz: And so, yes, today you can run mean and lean and have, you know, the same power that would've cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, even three or four years ago.

[00:33:26] Jason Yarborough: when you're talking to folks now. I imagine you talked to a lot of people and if you're talking about getting started with ai, like how, what's the context in which you were talking to people about how to get started using AI and like how can that really impact the level of business that they're doing? Right. Clearly, you, you saw it and you're like, I can build a business off this. Like we had a session within Arcadia that you were a part of, like how to build AI to further, you know, progress your life and job. Like what does that conversation look like from you for someone who's now building an AI company?

[00:33:54] Josh Katz: Well, I would say it's two things. Um, one, do it. That's the most important thing, 

[00:34:01] Josh Katz: like try something. Okay. We don't know which of these models is going to be the best. We don't know which company is gonna win this arms race, and it doesn't matter. All of these models will become commoditized and democratized in, in generally in the next few years.

[00:34:18] Josh Katz: It's what you will do with them and how you'll focus that power that that will create a lot of great companie. So the first piece of advice I give people is practice interacting with ai. And I do believe that voice will be the predominant way we interact with ai. And so try, try something like, like whisper uh, whisper flow is, is maybe the best AI tool that I've, I've used this year. 

[00:34:43] Jason Yarborough: Sam got me

[00:34:44] Jason Yarborough: hooked on it. 

[00:34:45] Sam Yarborough: Yeah, Josh, and I think this is not a sponsored post, but I think Josh and I are their biggest fans,

[00:34:51] Josh Katz: you'll just work four or five times faster doing the exact same things you're already doing and it takes one minute to install whisper. And so it's things like that where you're practicing talking and not talking like you're talking to a robot. Just stream of consciousness. Flow it out there.

[00:35:09] Josh Katz: Let let the AI show you. How it's interpreting what you're saying and you can tune it just by responding back to it if it is or isn't what you were hoping. So do it. Get started with something, start interacting with ai and then if you're working on a team or in a company, maybe the lowest hanging fruit is to ask each department leader, how are they using AI today?

[00:35:34] Josh Katz: And do they have any ideas of how. They could use it in their department in the future and have 'em come to a meeting and just talk about it. people are probably using tools within your org that could be helpful if you knew about them. There's probably ways to deploy AI against the tools that you're already using where it isn't native within those tools.

[00:35:55] Josh Katz: And so at I, last company, I created a matrix. It had. Each department and then the columns were general AI use specific use case use cases using our specific tech stack. And then I think I did one for when we're in person, like conferences and stuff like that. And it was just a really great way to aggregate across four or five people what we're doing and what we could do.

[00:36:20] Josh Katz: And it was a really good conversation. Start.

[00:36:22] Jason Yarborough: Love it.

[00:36:23] Sam Yarborough: I think just two call outs on that. Um, I think it can be overwhelming for people. Like there's varying degrees of comfortability with ai. I mean, I feel like most people in tech are. In GPT of some sort every day for a myriad of things, but like pushing beyond that I think can be, intimidating for some people. But just two points of context that I thought were really interesting from the Constellation. One person, um, is interviewing for jobs right now and a lot of the companies have asked him, what have you built with ai? Not like, how are you using ai, but what have you built with it? And I thought that was a really like. I don't know, six months ago that wasn't asked on interviews, you know? So like the world is changing fast and I think just figuring that out by exploring, and I think you need to remove the barrier of I'm building a company to I am just learning is

[00:37:18] Sam Yarborough: a helpful piece of context. And then secondly. Another member was talking about how their team actually has initiatives for AI experiments for every member of their team. And those initiatives may or may not prove to be something fruitful for the business, but it is more of like a continuing education, um, employee development, but also that benefits the company because I'm sure that the learnings they are receiving are like tenfold

[00:37:45] Josh Katz: I, can't imagine an interview that wouldn't ask, are you using ai? How, how did you use it to prepare for this interview? I mean, like, it's, I don't even care what the answer is. It's, it's a huge signal if you, if you're 

[00:37:59] Jason Yarborough: the answer's always gotta be. Yes.

[00:38:01] Sam Yarborough: This is actually a robot talking. I am

[00:38:03] Josh Katz: Yeah, 

[00:38:03] Jason Yarborough: Yeah. We we're actually all, this is not even us anymore. This is notebook, LLM talking. So

[00:38:08] Jason Yarborough: like, you know, just kidding.

[00:38:10] Josh Katz: I, I do think. Just notebook. LM is a really great place to start if you're nervous, because you can use, you can keep everything contained. You can drop in your website or a couple of assets and just start talking to it. And so it's, it seems to me that that's a pretty safe place. If, if, if you were nervous to start.

[00:38:27] Sam Yarborough: I haven't tried that one.

[00:38:28] Jason Yarborough: Very cool. All right, let's go back to the, uh, the business owner thing, but, uh, hear more about you. Josh and things, I think that drive you, like, would you say is the, uh, the hardest tension that you might navigate, uh, between being a driven new business owner, uh, and being the dad that you wanna be for your kids?

[00:38:48] Josh Katz: I don't know if I can solve for that because I'm driving in this in two completely different directions. You know, I wanna be home with my kids, they're four and five, and see every one of these moments. And even if I were just working a normal job, um, that time's fairly limited for me.

[00:39:06] Josh Katz: You know, I get the morning and when I get home from work before they go to bed, and so I, I don't wanna give that up. And so for me, the answer has been to sleep less. 

[00:39:16] Josh Katz: and so I've picked up m over an hour and a half, but almost an hour, 45 minutes a day just by sleeping less in the last, you know, three or four months.

[00:39:27] Josh Katz: So sleep less. That's, that's 

[00:39:29] Josh Katz: one way to solve 

[00:39:30] Jason Yarborough: get getting up earlier and working or going to bed later and working or,

[00:39:33] Josh Katz: Yes, both.

[00:39:35] Josh Katz: Um, 

[00:39:35] Sam Yarborough: Do not try this at home for professionals only.

[00:39:39] Josh Katz: and. You know, then there's this other driving force of what do I wanna show them? Who do I want them to see me be? And I can't really think of a, a bigger mission than doing what I'm doing right now. Um, I'm all in. I believe in what we're building. I'm not gonna quit. And I know it's gonna be hard. And so in order for me to make that true and be present for my family, it's very tough.

[00:40:06] Josh Katz: Um, but I'm gonna do both They're both important. 

[00:40:09] Jason Yarborough: the next question that's coming, 'cause we talk about it a lot, is like, how, and in that new time that you're getting, how are you finding time to take care for yourself or take care of yourself?

[00:40:19] Josh Katz: there's one thing that I, I heard the other day, and it's, I, I've literally remind myself of this five times a day. I am and should feel blessed to be stressed and anxious and nervous about all of these things that are happening because they're the exact things that I manifested and wanted to occur and worked my ass off to occur for very many years.

[00:40:45] Josh Katz: And so we consistently are. Own largest critics, and I believe it's in many cases because we just keep moving our own goalposts. Sometimes we work really hard to achieve something, and then we get there and we're still just looking at what's next, what's next, and we don't stop for five minutes or 15 minutes to realize this was hard and this is valuable, and I should feel blessed to be here dealing with this.

[00:41:11] Josh Katz: I just feel blessed that I get to do this, and I know it's hard. And so I just keep reminding myself that you get to do this. So, um,

[00:41:20] Sam Yarborough: Do you have any rituals around that, or is it truly just like keeping it top of mind?

[00:41:25] Josh Katz: I do. Um, I've got a couple of things written down that I look at all every day and. One of them is my entrepreneur hat, which said, my sister told me this. Um, my sister Rachel Saunders, um, be relentlessly resourceful.

[00:41:42] Sam Yarborough: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:43] Josh Katz: And so no one's coming to save me. No one's coming to save either of you guys either, just so you know.

[00:41:48] Josh Katz: Um, and so we have got to solve these problems. We gotta keep them in motion. We gotta. Leave our baggage behind. And so I'm trying to be relentlessly resourceful. And the other one is, what I just described before is just reminding myself when I get stressed or things get hard, like this is exactly what I asked for.

[00:42:06] Josh Katz: And, um, I don't really want to go work for another company. Um, I want to, I want to build this and I want it to be meaningful for others as well.

[00:42:16] Sam Yarborough: Love that. I have to tell a quick story about Josh really quick 'cause it stuck with me. But this summer before the um, Arcadia leadership experience, a few people came out and had an Airbnb the night before. Josh is an avid fly fisherman, so we were all planning to like where they should go fly fishing and whatnot.

[00:42:35] Sam Yarborough: Jason and I stopped by with the kids. Josh was gone like missing and we were like, where is Josh? Well, it turns out for like no joke, 45 minutes he was inside playing with our son Jack, like on the floor learning a new board game, like heads down playing instead of. Being with all the people that he came to visit across the country. And I just thought that was the coolest 'cause it shows your ability to play. Um, you were just like so invested in making him feel seen and special. And it was, it was really awesome. 

[00:43:10] Josh Katz: No, he crushed me 

[00:43:12] Sam Yarborough: oh. Well, I'd expect nothing less. He loves a board game. Okay. On a more personal note, I'm curious if you have any specific relationships in your life that have shaped you as you have become a leader and a builder and kind who you're stepping into today?

[00:43:31] Josh Katz: First one is, is my dad. Um, I learned that. Things aren't easy. You gotta show up anyway and one foot in front of the other, the hard work is what's gonna pay off. Um, a second would be a, a previous, um, uh, boss of mine, David Curran Dish. I've seen him do things that I think were thought were impossible, and I've seen him.

[00:43:57] Josh Katz: plan years ahead. And so now I can see how meaningful that can be as opposed to just block and tackling and figuring out how to make, make some money. You really have to figure out what people don't know that they need. And so that, that would be a lesson I learned there. Um, one, another one is one of my mentors, Steven Beer.

[00:44:17] Josh Katz: And, um, I've had a relationship with him since I was a first year attorney in New York and he was a, a big time partner and, um, he's been a mentor of mine for, for decades now. And, uh, I wrote about it on LinkedIn the other day about how he was one of those people who I really wanted to reach out to when the time was right.

[00:44:37] Josh Katz: And, you know, we always have that, that story. We tell ourselves when the time is right, the time's never gonna be right. And guess what? We talked the next morning and it was just like we had spoken the last week.

[00:44:48] Josh Katz: So it's people who, he, he's one of the people who taught me that even in complex business, that you can be kind and you can, you know, look out for people. Um, and I think that served me quite a bit. 

[00:45:03] Josh Katz: 

[00:45:03] Jason Yarborough: Love it. Now you're building a business off of it. So as we bring this home, tell us, uh, where can we, where can we get our hands on Knostra?

[00:45:12] Josh Katz: Well, only a couple of dozen people have been able to accomplish that feat to date. We are rolling this out in small groups to our beta users. Um, if you go to KKnostra.ai, K-N-O-S-T-R a.ai, um, you can join our wait list. Um, and when you do let me know what you're dealing with from a relationship perspective, what's not working for you.

[00:45:37] Josh Katz: I'll respond to you. I respond to every one of those emails. It's important to me. This is. Research for us, and, uh, we will be opening up the platform to the public in January, 

[00:45:47] Jason Yarborough: we can find you all over LinkedIn,

[00:45:51] Jason Yarborough: anywhere else That, you, anywhere else you wanna be found. Mr. Katz.

[00:45:54] Josh Katz: Call me, text me, page me, whatever you need. Um, if you wanna talk about Knostra, we can do 

[00:46:00] Sam Yarborough: Go to his house for barbecue. 

[00:46:02] Josh Katz: Wanna talk about barbecue? We can do that. And honestly, um. I, I'd love to hear from anybody, so let me know if I can be helpful and come check us out. Join our wait list. We really appreciate it.

[00:46:13] Jason Yarborough: Love it. And hopefully find Josh at, uh, back at Arcadia Leadership Experience again this summer.

[00:46:18] Josh Katz: You have my word.

[00:46:21] Jason Yarborough: I love it.

[00:46:22] Sam Yarborough: Josh, we're so grateful for you, for your 

[00:46:24] Sam Yarborough: friendship, for what you're doing in the world, so thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:46:27] Josh Katz: Guys, it just, if I could add one more thing, I, I appreciate you both immensely and I'd be remiss if I didn't say that there was one moment at the last A LX that really was part of the spark for this. It was one of the wonderful speakers that you brought in, and we all started talking about these cards of how we could remember to reach out, reach out to people.

[00:46:48] Josh Katz: When I left, that really was the first. Thing that I did was I went into lovable, and it was my first project in using AI to build something. And I billed, at that time it was called Riz, a relationship investment system based off what we did, what we talked 

[00:47:05] Jason Yarborough: I'm glad you 

[00:47:06] Jason Yarborough: changed the name. 

[00:47:07] Josh Katz: And, um, that was, that was kind of the, the baby, the seed that, that has now become Knostra.

[00:47:13] Josh Katz: So thank you. Um. I look forward to, to pushing this out to our crew and to the, to the larger community as well.

[00:47:21] Sam Yarborough: That's super fun because I think that is maybe the episode before or two before this one where we had Erica Flowers on the

[00:47:30] Sam Yarborough: show too, and she's the 

[00:47:31] Jason Yarborough: Talking just about that system.

[00:47:33] Sam Yarborough: yeah. So glad to hear it.

[00:47:35] Jason Yarborough: Perfect. Follow up. 

[00:47:36] Josh Katz: Thanks Erica.

[00:47:39] Sam Yarborough: Yeah. Alright friends, thank you so much. Go follow Josh. Go be kind, go build great relationships in the world and 

[00:47:46] Jason Yarborough: Yep. And make your circles bigger.

[00:47:49] Josh Katz: Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you both.

[00:47:52] Jason Yarborough: Thank you, Josh. See y'all.