Seeq and You Shall Find: Killing the Directory Era

In this episode of The Disruptor Podcast, host John Kundtz sits down with Jon Levesque, Founder and CEO of Seeq, to explore why the age of static directories such as Google, Yelp, and star ratings is officially over.

Jon shares how Seeq, the world’s first Experience Network, transforms social content into living, bookable experiences. Instead of endless scrolling and fake reviews, Seeq turns creator videos into AI-assisted, mappable, and shoppable itineraries, bridging intent and action in one click.

You’ll hear how Jon transitioned from setting up Microsoft stages to speaking on them, why he left corporate life to build something truly human-centered, and how his team is helping creators earn a real income while empowering users to get back out into the world again.

Together, they discuss what it means to turn your phone from a prison into a compass and why the next digital revolution is rooted not in attention, but trust.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1️⃣ Why the “directory era” is dying—and what replaces it.

2️⃣ How Seeq lets creators monetize their content without chasing views.

3️⃣ Why the future of discovery is human-led and AI-assisted.

How digital platforms can move us from an attention economy to a trust economy.

About our guest:

Jon Levesque is the Founder and CEO of Seeq, a first-of-its-kind experience network that connects discovery, storytelling, and real-world action.

A former Microsoft and DocuSign executive, Jon has built global communities, led Fortune 500 engagement strategies, and now focuses on empowering creators to build trust-based economies where authenticity, not algorithms, wins.

👉 Learn more at seeq.ing or

Connect with Jon on LinkedIn or follow him on Substack: Jon J. Levesque

Chapters

• 0:00 Killing The Directory Era
• 0:18 Host Intro And Show Vision
• 0:41 Meet John Levesque Of Seek
• 1:21 Founder Backstory And Career Pivot
• 3:19 What Seek Is And Why It Exists
• 4:08 The Death Of Lists And Ratings
• 5:10 Social Search And Intent To Action
• 6:10 Turning Videos Into Bookable Sequences
• 6:53 Revenue Share And Creator Economics
• 7:37 Fixing The User Planning Experience
• 9:12 Trust, Reviews, And Perverse Incentives
• 10:39 Phone As Compass Not Prison
• 11:45 Mindset Shifts For Creators
• 13:15 Balancing Secrecy With Access
• 15:15 Lifting Up Local Businesses
• 16:24 Product Benefits And AI Capabilities
• 18:02 Owning The Audience Relationship
• 19:07 Quiet Disruption And Blue Oceans
• 20:06 Where To Find Seek And John
• 21:21 From Attention To Trust Economy

Transcript

John Kundtz: 0:00

Seek and you shall find. Killing the Directory Era. Hi everyone, I'm your host, John Kunz, and welcome to another edition of the Disruptor Podcast. For those that are new to our show, the Disruptor Series is your blueprint for groundbreaking innovation. We started the podcast in December of 2022. Our vision was to go beyond conventional wisdom by confronting the status quo and exposing the raw power of disruptive thinking. And today's guest embodies that spirit, John Lebeck, the founder and CEO of Seek, which is a new kind of experience network that turns your phone into a compass for real-world experiences. Today we explore how to replace static search with creator guided AI-assisted plans that you can actually book. Welcome to the show, John.

John Leveque: 1:06

Thank you so much for having me, John. Appreciate it. What a great intro. You nailed Seek. I appreciate that. All right.

John Kundtz: 1:11

Did my homework. But for those listening, we do do a prep call, and so we try to get on the same page. Actually, it's pretty cool. I think you've got some really cool disruptive things to talk about. But before we get into that, just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, your education. How'd you get here today? Feel free to start anywhere you want.

John Leveque: 1:29

Awesome. Yeah, my name is John Levesque. As you said, I'm originally an East Coaster, born in Connecticut, moved to Seattle when I was 19, ran away from a bit of a hard life, didn't go to college, tried it one time. It wasn't for me. In fact, funny story for everyone, I didn't even finish high school. I dropped out of high school. And so my education came from self-teaching and learning along the way the hard way. So that led me to Seattle where I got pretty lucky and I got into tech. I got a really, really bad job at Microsoft where I was just carrying around gear, setting up stages for people to talk. But what was cool was that got me in the doors. I met a lot of people, I got a bunch of different opportunities. I eventually started leading communities and to cut a long story short, eventually ended up speaking on those stages that I set up that many years ago, which was kind of a cool full circle moment in life. From there, I got to become an executive and lead community for Microsoft, for DocuSign, and kind of got down the road where I decided, you know, I'm building a lot of value. I understand how community works. I want to build a community around something that I value. And that's where this all really began was I decided I was going to leave the corporate world and create something that mattered to my heart and my mind. I started Seek on the side, building it at night, and I got a bit of a Sparta kick off the cliff not that long ago when I got laid off from my job at DocuSign and decided to take that moment and go full-time into building Seek, which I've been doing now for close to four months.

John Kundtz: 3:09

I love the story about how you were setting up the stages and then you worked your way on to being on the stages. So that's that's a pretty cool backstory. And so good. So Seek is four months old. But tell us a little bit about that. You know, everybody sort of builds these things because they see something that's not quite working or they feel like the again, the whole purpose of this show is the disruptor is what kind of stuff are you doing to sort of disrupt the industry? But in order to do that, you got to sort of take a back look and say, you know, what are people doing? What are some of the like the biggest mistakes you see short form creators and local experts make when taking what I would call a more traditional approach to monetizing content?

John Leveque: 3:51

Yes, I but I want to call out one caveat to that point you just made. And I think short form creators have been doing the thing they've been taught to do. And the thing that's wrong is the platform model that we've been in, that we've believed to be the only way. And what I mean is, you know, and this to come back to your title and what you introduced us as is the directory era is dead. I think when I say that, what does that mean? It's we look at how we've organized information for a long time now, and it's directories, right? It's lists, it's tables, and it's rows, right? And that has taken so many forms. If you think of all the way back to like, you know, I'm I'm somewhat of an older guy. Like I remember library, the library system, the Dewey Decimal system, pulling out a drawer and looking through cards, right? But if you think about it, that was just columns and rows. And everything we search today on the internet, if you go to Google, it's just columns and rows, right? This topic, this link. And so we have organized information in a way that has really been beneficial to machines, right? It's been it's been the way that we've thought it should be. But something changed. Something changed in the last few years. What's really interesting is we are rejecting the directory. We no longer want to go and search the same reviews and and sift through 400 of them to try and find one that resonates with us. We no longer want to go and believe the star rating system. Instead, the way that we as people today are finding information and finding, specifically in my arena, what we want to do or what we want to eat, it's social media. 72% of all decisions, intent ends on social media. And so, like when I decided I wanted to go to Italy, how did I figure out what I was gonna do? I got on Instagram and I watched a bunch of creators make videos about the best spots and the best sandwiches, and then I saved those things, right? And I didn't do anything with them. And so Seek and how we're disrupting everything is we're trying to create an instantaneous bridge between an intent and action. And so we've built a layer that essentially consumes social media content, videos, carousels, and then turns that into a fully detailed, tipped out, mappable, shoppable guide. We're calling it a sequence. And so, what does that mean exactly? So I put in an Instagram video that's five days in Italy, I get out a full itinerary with five days fully planned, with everything mapped, with a book it now link on it. And the coolest part of it, and here's where the big shift happens in how we're disrupting traditional platforms, we actually share 60% of that income with the creator. So if someone books something from their trip, they're getting paid. Instead of the platform taking all of that value, that we're actually giving the creator the lion's share of that value because they're the one that created that value. And so we have a whole set of tools and how they can monetize and communicate with their audience. But essentially, we're flipping this model that the platform takes all the value from the creator entirely on its head and giving the creator the power to really monetize their audience in a whole new way. And so it goes, it gets really interesting because suddenly a creator with 10,000 followers has the same income potential as a creator with a million followers in the old model.

John Kundtz: 7:35

So that's cool. I didn't really think of it like that. But what I think what you're saying is the creators can still be creators and keep doing what they do well and continue on what they're good at. What you're really disrupting is the user experience, the person that is viewing or listening to that content. And therefore, by by giving them a better experience, and I'm a big fan of experience disruptors as well, so it's sort of what you're doing. So I, as the consumer of that content, now I've got a better experience, which, oh, by the way, in turn sounds like it helps put money in the pocket of the creator.

John Leveque: 8:14

Exactly. You know, there's I have a lot of stats. I'm a stats guy, I love case studies. It on average takes a human being around four hours to plan a six-hour outing. So, like your Saturday afternoon, somebody's spending a bunch of time trying to figure out where to go, what to do to put that half day together. They spent a half day somewhere else. Now, imagine if instead of that, when you're doing the research, scrolling through social media, you see the thing you want to do. Now, instead of you as the user having to take this whole set of actions to go look up each of those places, possibly book those things, figure out the directions, note it all down somewhere. Instead, what will happen is you would click on the video, it would turn over, and every single one of those details is completely outlined for you. No thinking, no planning whatsoever required. Your your six-hour excursion on Saturday now took five minutes instead of four hours. And so, as the user, yes, extremely disruptive, extremely different in the way that we prepare today because we use, you know, if you think about it now, it's Google, it's Yelp, it's TripAdvisor, it's Google Docs, it's Google Maps, it's Yelp. Like there's just 20 different tools that you're using to attempt to get all the information you need. We're just trying to simplify that whole process and give you everything right up front.

John Kundtz: 9:38

Well, and it's it's overwhelming, right? It's and and then you don't really know how much of it's real. So, you know, you don't know how much of it's been paid, you know, or or you know, pseudo, you know, reviews and things like that, I'm assuming, you know. And so I I sort of just ignore it because I just it's too much.

John Leveque: 9:57

It's and I don't really trust it, to be honest. Well, and think of it like this, right? Even let's say that let's give everything the benefit of the doubt just for a second. Like Google removed over 400 million fake reviews in 2023. Just just putting that out there. But let's let's go ahead and say for the benefit of the doubt that every review was real. Here's the real problem we see with something like Yelp or Google Local or any of these current directories, also, okay? They're not incentivized to give you the answer you want in the moment. When I'm looking for pizza, Google does not make money by connecting me with the very best pizza place right down the street from me. Google makes money when I scroll through the list and see more sponsored listings. There's no incentive in their business model for delivery of satisfaction. There is only a business model to keep me scrolling. And so, again, when I, you know, you said it. I I love this line. I'm trying to make the phone a compass and not a prison. And this is exactly what I'm talking about. I want to return, like the whole goal of Seek is to get people out into life more.

John Kundtz: 11:12

The last thing I want to be doing is keeping them scrolling for endless amounts of time, which is amazing because pretty much every social media platform, whether it be LinkedIn or Google or you name it, Instagram, anything, the whole goal of these social media platforms is to keep you on their platform. Right?

John Leveque: 11:33

I mean, they don't want you to leave the retention economy.

John Kundtz: 11:36

Yeah. And so what you're doing is saying, yes, your your job is to find what you need and leave and go have a great experience. So is that you sort of talked about this, but I want to just sort of highlight it because you've you sort of lit into my next question, which is more of what are the sort of the mindset shift or habits you wish that both the short form creator and and the actual local expert would take or adopt before like again start posting the next reel or the next Instagram book.

John Leveque: 12:08

There's a lot of culture amongst these creators to gatekeep. And and I understand that because two reasons. One, you want to keep your favorite places quiet, right? As like a travel creator, you're like, well, I don't want to tell them the best things. I feel like there's an interesting shift that has to happen because I believe that all humans should get to see all the things they want. There shouldn't be this gatekeeper's mentality that only allows certain people to see certain things. I don't like that. But I think that to the second point is there's been no economic incentive for them to do so up until now, right? Whether I share a crappy spot or my favorite spot, if it gets the same amount of views, I get paid the same, right? My incentive on these platforms is not to go deeper, it's to be more aesthetic. Where I think with Seek, there's a greater opportunity for those who are willing to share the deeper secrets. I think that they will have a greater economic outcome. And we're making the system in the way where, you know, we have an option where you can keep something free and load it with affiliate links and you get paid based off those affiliate links. We're working on a model where you can strip out affiliate links and just do direct sales, where if you just want to sell someone the knowledge of the trip and not put affiliate marketing in it, you can do that. And so we're really trying to empower every creator to to create and sell in the way that they want. And so I think, you know, the the direct answer to come back around is is you know, find your reason to stop gatekeeping. And if that's an economic one for you, then then Seek can help with that. And secondly, I think be specific. Like, don't be afraid to be specific, especially for in the case of Seek. If you share that boutique hotel that you absolutely loved, there's an opportunity for you to earn from others going there rather than you trying to get a million views to earn anything at all. And so I think those small shifts will probably make the biggest impact when we think about a traditional platform versus Seek.

John Kundtz: 14:19

I like this approach because I think one of the problems you have, if you have a million followers, sort of reminds me of that insurance commercial a few years ago where the guy was standing over the beautiful vista and looking at it, and then all of a sudden it's this isn't this great, and then hopefully nobody finds out about it, and then two seconds later there's some woman in with a holding a Stanley cup and uh and a self stick, you know, talking about gratitude and absorbing abundance or something like that, and then there's a whole line of people behind them, right? They go, okay, they can't move on. And that's sort of, I think, the problem. If you've got this giant, if your if your monetization policy is or is to have high numbers, well, then all of a sudden you've ruined whatever you're trying to talk about. Because if you if you find a great restaurant but you can't get a reservation for two years, or you go to a beautiful beach in Italy, but it's just packed with 10,000 people. I mean, it's just for me, that's just not a great experience. You know? So yeah. And so I like this idea where you can you can help them make some money, but you don't have to have it's not a it's not a Pete Pete Times Q game.

John Leveque: 15:32

On the other side of this all, right? Like, I I have this story in my head that I want to tell someday, and I can't wait to find this story in the world. But I have this story of like when I think about the opposite side of this equation, the little mom and pop restaurant, where they make grandma's recipes and they've been doing it that way for 40 years, but they don't have the know-how to try and compete in the social media game, they suddenly have a chance because one person can come in and tell the story. Now, that one person who told that story, it might be harder for them to get a reservation next time. But just think about the other side that restaurant seeing life like it's never seen life. And so the other part of this, just you know, I think we're going there, so I'm gonna say it. We have a vision down the road where we can actually be a middle layer where when restaurants engage with Seek, we have a model in mind to be able to help the restaurant succeed, but then also make sure that the creator who helped that success happen gets a chunk of that success. And so there's a win-win for everyone involved. And and so I think, you know, in the immediate that point you bring up, there is a danger when a million people go and visit an alpine lake, right? And I think that some of the protections we've put in as far as like selling the knowledge to users and not just blasting it out widely, it gives multiple incentives for the creator to say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna put a hefty price on this. A few people will buy it, I'm not ruining my favorite place, but also I'm putting something out in the world that other people can enjoy. And so we're absolutely keeping that balance in mind and making sure that we're we don't want to overrun anything, but at the same time, we want to give opportunity to everything.

John Kundtz: 17:29

Nice. You you basically just answered my last question. Oh, I was I was gonna ask you take these short form videos into bookable mapped sequenced itineraries, and so just I was gonna ask you what makes this approach so effective.

John Leveque: 17:46

Yeah, yeah. I think you know, the big benefit for creators is trifold. One, you don't have to go and create another medium. If you are a video creator, we will produce the web layer for you, right? And that's number one. We do it for free, also. If you want to share more of your profit with us, you don't even have to pay us a monthly fee to use our tools. It's all free. That's one. Number two, the AI that does this transformation, you know, it might be a little bold of me to say, but it's really, really good. It saves you a ton of time. It understands fully what's happening in your video and maps it genuinely well in a way that you don't have to change a lot if you don't want to. And third, we're allowing you to have a connection with your audience that no other platform does. When someone engages with one of your sequences on Seek, they're your customer too. We allow you to then have access to them, to market to them, to talk to them, to ask them how it went. There's and and no other platform is allowing you this openness in this way to communicate and build your own business with your own audience. And so I think there's a lot of things we're doing that are pretty disruptive and unique, but everything that we're doing, you know, why I think a creator should care, I'll kind of change the question just a bit, is I think we are giving them an opportunity to monetize while they sleep in a way that no one else is offering them. And so I think there's a it's a big, it's a big shift, it's a big change. And I I'm really excited for creators to become aware. We've been pretty quiet right now in the beta, but we're about to get real loud. Excellent.

John Kundtz: 19:28

This has been super cool, great, rich conversation. It's disruptive, but there's a concept of it that comes out of the ocean strategy where you don't have to be the Netflix that puts Blockbuster out of business. But you can have quiet disruption, which basically allows the current market to do what they're doing, but pull them into more of a blue ocean as opposed to this bloody red ocean I'm assuming creators are starting to get into, which is just nothing but how many likes can I get, and how many views can I get, and how many followers can I get it? So this is really, really fascinating. So we're getting to the end of the show. How can people learn more about you, your services, your socials? What's the best way for people to sort of follow up on some of these thoughts and ideas?

John Leveque: 20:20

Yeah. S-e-e-q.ing seeking is the main website. I also am on every social, like on earth. I think I literally have an account on all of them. John J. Levesque. That's the same username across all of them. I talk on LinkedIn a lot, I talk on threads a lot, I do some YouTube, but I would say these days I'm I'm very much on Substack. And so if you want to read how I'm thinking about things, I do a weekly update on Seek, where we're at, what we're building, how I feel about it. That happens on Substack. And so multitude of ways to get a hold of me there. Excellent.

John Kundtz: 20:57

We will obviously put all of those links in our show notes. I two them on Substack, so maybe we can get a few more subscribers to each of our Substacks and uh promote uh your link as well. Alrighty, this has been really cool. So before we wrap up, John, I always like to give the guest the last word before we finish.

John Leveque: 21:19

Awesome. You know, I think there was one thing that I wanted to say, and it is I'm excited for us to move out of this attention economy and move into the trust economy. I think it's a very exciting time, and I'm excited to be part of building it.

John Kundtz: 21:35

Great. Me too. I I think I'm 100% behind you, so I wish you the best. Well, that's it. So I'm John Kunz, and thanks for joining us in this edition of the Disruptor Podcast. And remember, disrupt the status quo, reimagine what's possible, and lead with purpose. Have a great day.