#460: The Art of Following Your Passion with Iman Oubou, CEO & Co-Founder of Vocable.ai

What this episode is about

Iman Oubou, CEO and Co-Founder of Vocable.ai, discusses her innovative AI tool designed to simplify content creation for small businesses, addressing common pain points in content marketing. Combining her expertise as a tech entrepreneur and educator, she emphasizes the importance of efficiently navigating the digital landscape while building a personal brand without the overwhelming effort typically associated with content development.

Key takeaways

• Iman's journey proves success isn't linear; pivoting is key when passion eclipses prior plans.
• Pageantry isn't just glam—it's a confidence boot camp shaping self-aware leaders in business.
• Vocable AI: Streamlining content creation for busy entrepreneurs, freeing them from the content hamster wheel.
• Trial and error beats formal education—self-teaching is a superpower in navigating today’s ever-changing landscape.
• AI isn't just tech jargon; it's a bridge simplifying content for small businesses and budding creators.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Heather Monahan (Host) · 22 min speaking
• Iman Oubou (Guest) · 33 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Vocable AI, Artificial Intelligence, Iman Oubou, Sway
2. 20:00 – 25:00: Shopify
3. 25:00 – 30:00: Sway
4. 40:00 – 45:00: Hey Jen
5. 45:00 – 50:00: Hey Jen
6. 50:00 – 54:29: Vocable AI

Notable quotes from "#460: The Art of Following Your Passion with Iman Oubou, CEO & Co-Founder of Vocable.ai"

• Speaks normal she is a nerd but she also is really cool so she Blends the two together don't get nervous her latest startup vocable AI is an AI tool designed to streamline the content creation process the company software combines research.

  about Iman Oubou · at 0:47

• Different things she had but she had just literally been Miss New York and now she was you had just launched also sway which was a whole initiative and a platform in media…

  about Sway · at 2:24

• Another sale on Shopify and the moment another business dream becomes a reality your reality Shopify is a Commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide…

  about Shopify · at 20:23

• Called it's not an app it's a web app called hey Jen and there's a few others but hen is the one I've used and so you upload that two-minute video footage of yourself and you…

  about Hey Jen · at 41:32

• Last minute do things on a whim so that's one right and then I think the other realization I had is that the real power of AI is not in just oneoff prompts it's in…

  about Artificial Intelligence · at 47:01

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Iman Oubou — Person · Main guest (repeat guest) · 1 mention · first at 1:34
  Central interview subject discussing her career pivots (science → media → AI), her startup Vocable AI, and practical AI workflows for content creation and operations.

Companies & orgs

• Vocable AI — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 0:52
  Iman U's latest startup, an AI tool designed to streamline the content creation process.
  Speaks normal she is a nerd but she also is really cool so she Blends the two together don't get nervous her latest startup vocable AI is an AI tool designed to streamline the content creation process the company software combines research.
• Sway — Company · Referenced business · 2 mentions · first at 2:28
  Iman U's previous business, a media company focused on elevating women in business.

Products & tech

• Hey Jen — Product · Recommendation · 4 mentions · first at 41:34
  Mentioned as a tool for creating AI avatars, allowing content creation without filming.

Concepts & topics

• Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 0:40
  Central theme of the episode, discussing the application and impact of AI in content creation and business.

Sponsors

• Shopify — Product · Sponsor · 5 mentions · first at 20:21
  Mentioned as a sponsor, promoting its e-commerce platform.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 hi and welcome back I'm so glad you're back here with us this week okay it's so rare that I have a repeat guest but today I had to because not only is she brilliant she's going to bring you so much value and teach you how to create content without lifting a finger yes I understand your pain points everyone hates creating content everyone knows they need to do it everyone knows they need a personal brand but no one knows where to begin they all want inspiration they don't have an Arsenal already created so they're screwed no longer my friend is here to help you today okay Iman U's unique blend of experiences as a tech entrepreneur AI instructor and content marketing strategist positions her as an influential voice in the dialogue on the future of AI and content operations stand by for a second don't get nervous she doesn't speak AI she speaks normal she is a nerd but she also is really cool so she Blends the two

0:52 together don't get nervous her latest startup vocable AI is an AI tool designed to streamline the content creation process the company software combines research ideation planning production and optimization in one centralized workflow helping small businesses or you to stay organized and on top of their content development cycle this is what you've been missing this is why you're not creating content problem solved her work with vocable AI coupled with her role as an educator and speaker underscores her commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the AI and content marketing spheres ensuring that businesses are equipped to navigate the evolving digital landscape efficiently and innovatively Iman thank you so much for being back with us this week oh thank you for having me not once but twice I feel so special I'm so excited I'm so excited to be here with this whole new chapter of mine okay let's

1:50 start there actually because this is so interesting and I mean you know my audience you know you've been on the show before everyone's always so interested in like what is path look like to become successful what does the path look like to create your own AI business and here's what's what guys I met Iman in 2018 17 or 18 I don't remember which year it was um in New York and at the time you had just wrapped up being Miss New York right she was from the pageant world before that she was a scientist like let's not just say she was in pageant but she had done plenty of different things she had but she had just literally been Miss New York and now she was you had just launched also sway which was a whole initiative and a platform um in media around elevating women in business I mean since then you've gone on to raise Capital you've written books you've created podcasts you I mean you sold that business you've

2:46 done you moved from New York to Miami what up so so much has happened in your life and just take us back give us a little bit of a snapshot of like because I want everyone to know success isn't linear and you didn't just stum jumble into success with say and then that was it so can you walk us through what's happened a little bit in your life yeah definitely I think the the short answer for that is just my way of living is through trial and error just like the same way I you know I operate businesses or any initiative that I push out there I don't always go into something thinking that I need to have experience or that I need to have education around it I just know that I'm really good at self- teing myself um anything as long as I'm actually passionate about it and so so I don't shy away from pivoting and I every time I do any interviews or any talks around you know sharing my story I feel like the underlying common theme is

3:39 my ability to Pivot when things are not where I want them to be or things are not going right or maybe I think I can do better or maybe there's something else that I'm more passionate about I think most people operate from a place of oh I need to stick it through and because I went to school for this subject I got to have a whole career in it even though it doesn't make me happy but I have never really been that way you know obviously I I went to school thinking I was going to become a doctor then I've pivoted from wanting to practice medicine to going into science and R&D because I actually tried what it was like to practice I did medical missions around the world and I realized that practicing medicine was not for me because I'm too sensitive and I was crying all the time delivering bad news so I I immediately you know tried it and knew that it wasn't the right thing and it wasn't I was okay with saying okay I

4:26 thought I wanted it but it's not for me so now let me pivot it to science R&D so doing cancer research instead of you know being an oncologist practitioner um and I did that and it was really fulfilling I went to grad school for it um did medical missions to around the world while I was doing that and then ultimately moved to New York and was also doing beauty pageants on on the side and you know I think that experience itself also opened me up to A Whole New World that I didn't really know much about and what it did for me unlike what most people think about pageantry is like oh it's so all Glitz and GL it's like very catty and whatnot but there's a lot more to it than people see and it and the part of it that really I feel like shaped me to be the woman I am today is this this life boot camp that pushes you outside your comfort zone to really become the best version of yourself because you can't

5:16 stand on that stage unless you're fully confident graceful poised and most importantly to even get to that stage and win a pageant you have to know yourself really well because there's a portion of it that is all about interviewing not all just on stage but you have to meet with judges and then they ask you questions about why are you the best woman in this in this you know competition why are you the best representative of our country of our state whatever and so you in order to answer those questions you got to dig deep and you got to know yourself you got to know your vision you got to have a vision for yourself so that taught me a lot about who I wanted to be and because of that practice then I started realizing I think I'm more entrepreneurial I'm not someone who can work in corporate even though I felt like I moved to New York I had my my best dream job dream scenario I worked for a great Communications agency that

6:04 handles a lot of you know biotech companies and I thought I had finally lived the life that I was looking for and that I was dreaming about when I was in grad school only to realize that every day I went to that job I was so miserable and I couldn't understand why because I'm like wait I knew I wanted this but now I have it why don't I like it but then you know I just realized I'm more entrepreneur I'm more creative I like to come up with ideas I like to execute on them the corporate environment although my job at the time was amazing and I had no complaints about it it just wasn't for me and sometimes you just got to say that this is not this is great but it's not for me so at that point I was kind of forced to think outside the box and because of pageantry I had a platform right so then that platform gave me a voice that I felt like I never had before and through that platform I was able to launch a

6:51 podcast you know interview other women to learn more about their unconventional path to success and that eventually led to my media company and so you know things kind of just started falling into place almost on their own once I was authentic to myself once I was able to say okay I'm going to try something and if I don't like it I'm going to be open to pivoting and surrendering to that flow and that's ultimately I feel like how I've been living my life at least my career um and so after my media company and everything that I learned through that um content kind of creation process and running a Content team that's how I also now ended up in AI which was very almost unpredictable ible like if you asked me even two three years ago I would have never thought I would be running an AI startup now helping small businesses automate their content creation through AI but you know I think it's all again the ability to take

7:43 inventory of my skills my learning lessons and then apply them forward and it could be anything it could have been AI startup it could have been just being an AI speaker and so the short long story long is that you got to be open again to um pivoting in life when you don't feel like you're truly living your authentic self and you're not also applying your strengths and your skills okay you just gave so many great examples of how readily you're available or open to pivoting and making change instead of saying Oh no I got into medicine this is what I'm supposed to do I already put all this years against it so many people listening right now do that so how do you get yourself let's use the medical example that you gave you're in this pipeline becoming a doctor and you see yourself and you're like I don't really love this how how did you give yourself the grace to say okay I'm going to go ahead and try

8:37 something different and walk away from this now your business gets to a certain size and the cracks start to emerge things you used to do in a day are taking a week you have too many manual processes you don't have one source of truth if this is you you should know these three numbers 37,000 25 1 37,000 that's the number of businesses which have upgraded to netw Suite by Oracle net Suite is the number one Cloud Financial system streamlining accounting financial management inventory HR and more All For You 25 net Suite turns 25 this year that's 25 years of helping businesses do more with less close their books in days not weeks and drive down costs 25 years one because your business is one of a kind so you get a customized solution for all of your kpis key performance indicators in one efficient system with one source of Truth manage risk get reliable forecasts and improve your margins there is so much power in

9:58 having all the information that you need in one place imagine how much more efficient you can be how much faster you can move and to do it was so much confidence it's unprecedented and the unprecedented offer that neted is providing you today is going to make this possible right now download Net's popular kpi checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance absolutely free at netsuite.com Monahan that's netsuite.com Monahan to get your kpi check list now netsuite.com monan I deep down believe that there is a world where you can wake up every single day super excited about the life you live and the career you have and if you're not there even and I'm not saying look give up after one week of going to a job it takes some time but you know there is there is this mentality but you you need to know when to fold and you need to know when to hold and did you quote a Kenny Rogers on

10:59 there you go that's like my theme so because it's true because I know there's like this this mindset of like you can't give up you can't you got to keep yourself you got to push yourself out outside your comfort zone yes I agree to that fully and that's literally what I do too but you can't force yourself into liking a career line or a job that you know for a fact you're not you know so I think saying and being honest with yourself is is the first step right so to be more practical here is like I remember waking up and just saying like I don't think I can live like this for the next month let alone for the next 10 years so if you're dreading that morning like H I have to do this and I have there there is a better world there is a better scenario but you just have to get yourself to um surrender to that and actually look for that path and of course it takes a little bit of digging and researching a little bit of what you

11:55 want I'm not saying quit your job and just figure it out you have to also have a little bit more self-awareness right so what am I good at why do I not like this job right so take inventory of of why what are the reasons why you're not really happy where where you are and then see how you can small in small steps work towards that until you're able to really get yourself out of that job and into something more meaningful for you ultimately I feel like we have to be fulfilled we have to be super passionate and we have to also feel like we're walking the right path and living our purpose to do our best I know that I have really great work ethics right that's something I never doubt but I know and I've seen this happen so many times when I'm in the wrong environment when I'm in the wrong job I am the worst employee like I am just unemployable you know and it's not because I don't know how to do

12:45 things or it's not because I'm not educated or skilled it's just because I'm not interested enough to put in the effort and I feel like most people operate that way we're just like kind of automatically trying to get up and do the bare minimum but you you can live a much more fulfilling life when when you can really give your best and your all because you genuinely want to not because you're forced and so that to me is like really my mindset with anything that I do and even my own business once I feel like I hit a point where maybe I'm just not passionate about what I'm doing and it's my own business I will find a way to Pivot and then go for something else that I feel like maybe it's time now to move on to something else and so I think that that's really I it's it's simple but people struggle with that because we are taught to stick it through and that we can't complain and that we can't you know really pivot

13:37 and maybe some things will will not work out in our favor so well that's how you sold Sway and you know of course like with anything anything is a risk right that you're walking away from but that ended up being such a smart decision that you made one of the other things that you did similarly around the same time was you made the decision to move from New York so not only have you have you pivots around business you geographically did and I want you to talk a little bit about because I was shocked I'll never forget when you called me you told me you were moving down here I'm like what I was so hyped obviously but I was so surprised I never could have imagined you outside of New York and now and I want you to talk about this seeing you how much you love Miami and I think you were even surprised by it and what you've learned and one of the things that you say often is like how does this make me feel and I

14:25 know that recently you've been back in New York and you're like I just don't feel the same way I I don't like how I feel as much there as I like how and how you're really tuning into that if you can talk a little bit about that yeah I think one one thing I want to also point out is that there is the life that we think we want and then there is the life that is meant for us and is aligned with our highest purpose and so this is something I learned recently the when I say recently as in the past couple of years because of this move and and I would say it's not even a move I basically hit a reset button and you know this I woke up not woke up but like for six months I was kind of debating with I had this internal debate that just I couldn't sleep at night and you know even though I was trying to go on with my life wanting to think and forcing myself to think that I was living my dream life and I was for the

15:18 outside world it looked like everything I've worked towards I got but then going to sleep at night is was really difficult for me because there was something deep inside of me that I just couldn't explain I probably can never explain that was just pushing me to hit the reset button and say okay the business that I launched almost 10 years ago is not something I'm passionate about anymore and I need to move on from it and it's also not a business that I feel like is good for even my mental health at the time and for my skills I just wasn't growing anymore in that business so I was really prompted to be like okay I need to sell or just shut down either way I'm not continuing with it the relationship I was in which was a decade long also and I was engaged at the time I hit a reset button and I just walked away from it even though I felt like that was you know I I thought that was my person um again the the city I

16:12 was living in I thought that was going to be a city I live in forever I mean I'm obsessed with New York I love it I've always dreamed of being in New York forever but then somehow I woke up every day and I had anxiety just being in that City and and to me it was just like all almost like a physical sensation my body just had this in insane amount of anxiety that I experienced that I never had before and then I learned later on that when your body reacts that way it's because you're just not in the right environment anymore and then the people around you what you wake up and do every single day the city you live in is not good for you that's why your body is reacting to it and I had to make a very very very tough decision because it wasn't backed by Logic right so if I when I went up to my parents and even when I told you like yeah I just want to hit the reset button I just want to move away from this and from that but there

17:03 wasn't like one single specific reason why it just felt like it wasn't the right life for me anymore um but again it took six months to really get to that level of of um of trust that I was making the right decision and ultimately I chose to follow intuition versus logic because logically speaking I should have stuck it through and that was a great life why would I ever mess that up but intuitively it was not for me and I will say that and for the people listening that might be going through something like this because sometimes it's hard to make sense of situations is I all I did at that point when I made the decisions that I asked you know the higher power whatever you believe in God you know is if I making the right decision please show me signs and then immediately as soon as I made the move every single thing started falling into place on its own I met random investors that brought

17:57 my business to life and at a random restaurant in Miami the day after I moved here and then you know my brother wanted to go into business with me finally and helped me build the product of my dreams it all just almost just fell into place without me forcing it because I went into this saying okay I'm going to hit a reset button but I'm going to take some time I don't have to figure out what's next I don't have to have a decision made tomorrow about what's my next business or what's my next job I just want to go with the flow for once and surrender and maybe I will fall into the right path and that's I think ultimately what happened of course I took action along the way but that action came from a place of inspiration versus a place of anxiety which I feel like the last 10 years I operated that way right now I'm operated I'm operating from a place of inspiration Clarity alignment last decades I operated from a

18:48 place of control fear and anxiety and you can feel the difference like when you're even you've known me for a while I think most people that have also just seen me recently and then have known me before just can also tell the difference because you're so trusting of where you are in life that nothing scares you anymore and and that's ultimately now where I am so yeah it's been a long way coming it it's been a huge change in the way you think and the way you operate and how you trust yourself and yeah it comes across loud and clear like it radiates from you however if someone had said to me or you when you did say to me I'm going to go ahead and walk away from all this and and move to my start over it's like and that's guys big reminder right now listen to yourself listen to your intuition and like Iman said I love this exercise she goes through now pause for a minute check with how you feel how

19:42 do you feel in front of this person how do you feel in this environment how are you feeling right now doing this task at work like check in with you because so often we get busy and we're like oh and I'm supposed to go on a date at this time and I'm supposed to be here at this time and you don't stop to think wait a minute I don't even want to go this is not what I feel and I love the other day when you called me and said that you said hang on a second I'm feeling anxiety going to this place right now wait a minute makes me think I shouldn't be going this is not how I want to feel walking into situation I was like boy I wish somebody had taught me that years ago I always looked at it as like doesn't like whatever just hurry up and go you don't stop to actually ask yourself but when you do you make such better decisions that's the sound of another sale on Shopify and the moment another business dream becomes a reality

20:28 your reality Shopify is a Commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide including mine whether you're selling your Mastermind your courses whether you're selling your books Shopify simplify selling online and in person so you can focus on successfully growing your business and doing what you're great at creating whether it's fashion Home and Garden Health Beauty Shopify covers it all Shopify covers every sales channel from an inperson p OS system to an all-in-one e-commerce platform it even lets you sell across social media marketplaces like Tik Tok Facebook and Instagram packed with industry leading tools ready to ignite your growth Shopify gives you complete control over your business and your brand without having to learn any new skills in design or code and let me tell you I have no idea about design or code so thank you Shopify for making it so easy and thanks to 24/7 help and an

21:27 extensive Business course Library Shopify is there to support your success every step of the way what's incredible to me about Shopify is how no matter how big you want to grow no matter how big you currently are or how small you are Shopify is there to empower you with the confidence and control to revolutionize your business take your business to that next level constantly adding on new products services and ideas now it's your turn to get serious about selling and try Shopify now this is possibility powered by Shopify sign up for a $1 per month trial at shopify.com Monahan all lowercase m o n a an all lowercase sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com Monahan all lowercase go to shopify.com Monahan to take your business to the next level today join me shopify.com Monahan you can thank me later and and I know since you Al talk a lot about confidence I will say that having this

22:31 now exercise and also being more in tune with how my body reacts to certain decisions and also just being more in tune with my own intuition I have way more confidence and it's genuine authentic confidence versus the confidence that I had back in my 20s and you know early 30s I felt like that confidence was almost manufactured uh because I it it was all based on like oh experience and and trying to really talk myself into feeling confidence versus now it feels more from within it's just because I am so trusting of my own circumstances my own path and also I I'm not easily swayed by external circumstances or opinions you know I'm just more grounded in who I am and because I again it took a while to get here and it took a lot of and errors aot a lot of experiences a lot of failures and some successes of course but now ultim I feel like I'm finally at a place where I could say I have molded into the woman I've always

23:39 dreamt of and not because of what I have and what I've achieved but because of how I show up every single day so in my body and in my mind like I have zero doubts about where I feel like I need to be going I have more clarity about my business I have clarity about even just where I'm at now living in Miami versus New York right most people are like why were you in Miami it's not even like you it's not the city for you but I'm like you know what I feel good here and it's a city that regulates my nervous system and that's where I need to be you know anything that brings more regulation around my nervous system and calms my nervous system that's for me like that's how I learn now to calibrate situations and and make decisions too it's like is this person for me or not is this person good for me or not am I making a good business decision or not a lot of it is also now more intuitive than logical

24:27 which you know wasn't the case before so from a confidence perspective this is also an exercise that really helps you become genuinely confident where you don't have to try to be confident it just comes naturally that's such a powerful shift and for anyone listening that struggles with anxiety like I hope you hear him on right now because so many people look at her you cannot judge a book by their cover and people say oh Miss New York and she's got everything she's s telling you right now she struggles with anxiety with calming herself down with listening to herself like everybody's struggling with these same things um don't think that the rest of the world got it on Lock and you don't because that simply is not the case so thank you for being honest about that okay so Iman get us into a little bit of I remember how murky it was when you first started out with vocable and like not knowing what

25:13 direction to go how do you navigate that like how did things come together because you you didn't go to school for AI like how do you figure this stuff out yeah so I mean I had a little bit of an idea around AI back in 2019 and even when I first started my last company my last Media company I always had this idea that we're going to get to a place where we can automate a lot of the content creation aspects of the life cycle and that because of AI we'll be able to also help with the writing process and you know just basically streamline a lot of the manual tasks that go into the content creation process and so um with sway which I feel like was the stepping stone for me to really think through how does AI help in automating content creation process I really wanted to almost scale our operations at the time without having to hire more editors more writers in the team so my thought process was if we're

26:11 able to innovate here from a tech perspective and automate a lot of those tasks that my editors and and writers are doing I don't have to actually go higher for more I can just use the AI to create tools within our platform to help our members who were writing on sway to create their content without having to actually have a human helping them edit and write that content right so that was my first I think encounter with all right how do I practically figure this out and bring AI into the play so I can scale my business without having to have more overhead and so because of that pain point at the time this was 2019 I was able to dig deeper and I'm also really good at being super curious and research things once I have like a problem problem and then I'm able I need I need to solve for it and and most of the time especially I think being a scrappy startup founder and entrepreneur I'm just used to doing a lot of things

27:08 on my own versus Outsourcing immediately not only because of of money issues or anything but also because I genuinely want to learn myself first before I bring on anybody else to manage that process because I've done that before where you know you have a problem and then you bring on someone to help you so for it but then you're not able to properly manage that person because you don't know what doing and what you're doing right so being able to learn that was important for me so I started researching a lot of about like generative Ai and how can AI help you create content um by just prompting it my brother luckily for me is a software engineer so I think that kind of helped me a little bit kind of dig deeper into you know have him having him look into creating a prototype for sway at the time to um you know automate our content creation process and he started doing that and really loved it at the time CH

27:59 GPT obviously was not around but there were a lot of AI models that existed in the market but they were just a lot older gpt2 was the first one I was fine tuning um but it was a lot harder to work with because again they're not as easy now to use as the chat Bots the chat bots made it so much more mainstream and easy to use for the mass masses because you're just talking to it in human language and you're just prompting it like you're talking to a person but at the time when the AI models were just models and you had to fine-tune them you have to do that in what we call playground and it's a whole other process so luckily again my brother was there to help me walk through it and so we built this prototype right to just kind of test it out on ourselves for our own team and then we started kind of shopping that around to see if investors would be interested in that and the more I talked to people about it the more they said

28:46 well this is actually really useful for not just your members on your platform but people that are small like people that have small businesses that they need to run um other content creators that are struggling with their uh creation process so it would be really weird to just have that in your platform but not available to everybody why don't you create this as a software that's Standalone versus putting it as part of sway's platform and so that's when I sort of thinking okay this is actually really great idea um and this is only going to evolve more and more where there's going to be a lot more to the content creation and AI than just you know the writing process so at the time I made a decision to move on from Sway and then start kind of thinking through building this AI software but basically I think for me the reason why I really got into AI early on is because I had a paino I was trying to solve for and I

29:32 thought AI was the right the right way to go and I just knew from a technological perspective we will be heading to a world now where it's all about digiti digitization automation um and all data so data is they what they said the new oil right so I had to kind of get in that mindset and start thinking if I'm going to have another business or maybe if I'm going to run another business then I need to be very well-versed in how to create processes that can be automated and scalable and that's I think ultimately what people should think about when they think about AI right so they most people kind of shy away from it because they think it's a tech thing it's not my you know I don't I'm not an engineer I'm not a software person um I'm not a tech person it's not applicable to me but it is very important because anyone that runs businesses or even within organizations or even as an employer individual in

30:24 your own life you have to think about AI as something that could create processes that can be automated and scalable and reputable so ultimately that's to me why I really thought that was something I wanted to get into early on because the world is headed that way and so luckily we're right there yeah well that just reminds me another key point that I want everyone to just take a moment and notice get into a growth industry like iman's in the right place at the right time that's not by chance it was by Design because she pivoted away from something else to get into this for a long time I was in the radio business the radio business bus was in Decline and it made my life so much harder you're doing the same thing you'd be doing in a different industry but you're making it harder for yourself so take a moment look at the industry you're in and make sure it's a growth one and if it's not take the

31:10 steps to start changing it now you will make your life so much happier and so much better okay so you were struggling at first like anything you're you're building something out of a pain point which makes so much sense but how do you start getting it to the next level to to where you guys are today like what were some of the decisions you made or like or or how did you start landing on these massive stages teaching about AI so you built your name and your credibility so quickly I will boil it down to a very simple concept and it might sound too simple and maybe not helpful but honestly I was just geeking out over it I was so excited about all of it that because it just felt like things were coming out and developing so fast and it was it was genuinely revolutionary right like it changed so many things it changed how we do business it changed even now how I I run my life I mean even my grocery list and like my Sunday

32:04 errands are run by AI at this point so it just was like one of those aha moment that I had where I was like I'm genuinely like spending hours reading about it and sharing it with others on my social and that's how I attracted these other opportunities right so I attracted obviously the speaking opportunities because people saw that I was a lot more knowledgeable about Ai and that not only that a lot more passionate about how to apply it right so I think one of the things about me as well is that I'm not technical right so I didn't go to school as a a software engineer I'm not a coder um but I'm just geeking out over the application side of AI and I think that's um that resonated a lot more with the public because it's one thing if a AI researcher an AI engineer is explaining AI right so it's very technical and you lose a lot of people there but it's it's another thing where someone just you know like you and

33:00 I I mean I also have I'm just kind of another like business owner content creator I'm not again very well trained I didn't research AI but I'm able to really take a lot of the technological advances in that space and understand how I can apply it for myself as a business owner as a content creator as a marketer as you know just a human in society and that's I think where people started to relate to more it's like oh someone who isn't also as skilled in it but then was able to understand it easily and now is simplifying that for us to understand how we can also apply it in one of the use cases for us right and I think that's the biggest thing with AI now is we see all these news coming out and it's exciting but then most of the time people kind of are left with one question okay this is all nice and fun but what does it mean for me like how do I use it right it's like oh they announced a new model great so what does

33:54 that mean like how can I use it or how is it different than the last Model model and that's I think where maybe there's a little bit of lack of Education there and lack there's a gap right so there's like the technical people that are talking about it and explaining it and that's pretty much who I learn from a lot of the time but then I take that and then I kind of digest it on my own and then apply it on my own and then most people are not really doing that on their own right so they're busy running their own businesses they're busy with life that they don't have the the capacity or maybe even the bandwidth or passion to figure out how to use the latest AI model and play around with it and then how does that going to help them with XYZ in their business right so I guess that's where I come in right so I love doing that and it's exciting to me because not only it's good for us for uh vocable right so

34:39 every time we're we're kind of thinking about new features with vocable we want to know what people are struggling with and how can can we bring AI into building a product that is easy to use for them but also for me as a business owner I use it every single day with my businesses now you know I'm able to run a startup with a lot less resources and a lot less money than my first startup and I'm in AI so and I'm in a much more techy startup than the last one but because of AI I'm able to streamline a lot of my marketing and operations that I wasn't able to do that before so yeah that's that's basically like how I got into um you know just the whole AI space and we can talk about the vocable kind of product building which is a little bit different so tell us a little bit about because I know this is going to be helpful for a lot of people what are the right AI tools people should be using

35:28 now and how should they be using them because I know like you even mentioned oh like even your grocery list and and I am the opposite I'm not like out there looking how can I use AI to help my life and my business and I know a lot of my listeners aren't doing that either yeah I mean I think it one I would say before you even go there you want to know what your PIN points are and what you're trying to use AI to solve for right so maybe you're not struggling with your groceries and it's easy for you then you probably don't need AI for that as much but I I see it as more don't go forc trying using AI but find what you're struggling with first you know whether it's like a business process or maybe it's something that's like I don't know like scheduling for your kids and whatever during the day that that could also be something that you can streamline so what is something that you can you you one you're wasting too much

36:15 time on and you can probably easily streamline with technology or something that you're struggling with because it's scattered or the process not in place and you need to use AI to potentially solve for that so that's where it starts and then I think based on those pain points then you look at what the use case ends up being so it could be for your business for example it could be customer support or marketing um you know copywriting or it could be like ideation for your content that you need to be pushing out there it could also just be organizing your content calendar and scheduling in a way that's scalable and repeatable so you can do more with less so it depends again on so once you have that laid out okay here's what I want to use AI for because I'm struggling with XYZ then you go into looking up which AI tools of course are best for that use case so the bare minimum that you need to be using at

37:05 this point is AI chat Bots right so that's cha cha GPT of course that everybody's familiar with uh Claude which I think in you know you and I talks about this Claud is a competitor to chat gbt and it's at this point in my opinion it's much much better at um a lot of tasks than Chad gbt um and then there's Gemini there's other chat Bots like Pi that are more like apps on your phone but definitely at least two AI models that you need to be experimenting with on a daily basis and that I would suggest Chad gbt and Claude and then there's another layer now so if you're very well-versed with the chatbot um you know and then you're like okay I don't want to keep prompting too much or I want a little bit more sophisticated features that help me not just with generating copy or answers which is what chat Bots do right so you just ask them a prompt or a question and then they give you the answer but if you want more

37:57 sophisticated features like organizational management productivity features then you want to look at AI powered tools and so the best way for um for researching those are directories so there are so many directories now that people can look up one of them is there's an AI for that which is actually really cool so basically it's a directory of any AI tools out there and they also have gpts there so as you know there's different gpts now that are uh very t specific on the GPT store so if you go in onto there's an AI for that and you type in let's say um customer support or uh data analysis or whatever that task that you're trying to use AI for then it will pull out a list of top AI tools that specifically help you with that and at that point you look into it you know this is again a case by case I try not to go out there and recommend too many tools to everyone because I know it's a case by case one it's budget

38:56 two it's is it for a big team Enterprise versus small business three is it actually doing what you want it to do so you have to experiment with it and a lot of them have free trials so it's not hard to do right but I think this this is what your responsibility as a human is right so I want to use AI I want to figure out which tool it is yes I can listen to other people's recommendations but it is my responsibility as a business owner to do my own research and also stay apprised of what's out there and what kind of tools are popping up for different use cases so I I typically talk to people about a AI integration in a process in a Playbook versus hey use this tool use that tool because I know it's a case by case for different people so I would say for people that are just now integrating AI this would be a great like step by step for it right figure out where your pinpoints are then um come up with what use case that is for

39:46 and then look up a directory to see what AI tool or which AI chot is for is best for you talk us through something that you've done recently that I think is just so cool and I think my listeners will think it's cool too when you have people whether it be on your website or maybe people are always oh I need to pick your brain about this topic or there's always frequently asked questions that you're getting how you were able to create a digital live clone of yourself to manage things like this live clone well I don't know that it's live it looks like it's you and it's talking to me it is the weirdest thing ever it's basically a scanned version of me and it's yeah like digitized version of me but um it's interesting yeah so you and I talked about this and I also did a presentation at mind Valley about AI avatars so it's called AI instant avatars which by the way for anyone listening this is the future of AI I

40:42 mean I think 2024 is only the beginning but definitely going into next year you will see a lot more creators business owners myself included using AI avatars to scale their video marketing and you know that this but I definitely hate filming content like that is one thing I just absolutely hate doing because it's hard for me to balance that out with running a business and being like a founder and Tech mode and then being a creative after that so I jumped at the opportunity to test out this whole AI Avatar concept which basically is this idea of you upload a video of yourself kind of like how we're talking right now so I could have probably filmed myself doing this and then I would upload 2 minutes of you only need two minutes of video footage of you and then there's this app called it's not an app it's a web app called hey Jen and there's a few others but hen is the one I've used and so you

41:38 upload that two-minute video footage of yourself and you wait for it to clone you so basically it clones you as you are right so your make sure that your background is the one you want how your hair looks exactly how I look now is going to be my AI Avatar and so then you have that AI Avatar now available able to you of course if you like it great you keep it if you don't then you can continue uploading different footage or re-recording yourself until you find the right avatar for you but then you have that available where you can just create Now video content using your AI Avatar instead of you filming that content and the way it works is you can upload your script directly to the app so you basically just give your AI Avatar a script and it just lips sync it and then says it right as is or you can also record your own voice um into the app so then basically it's going to be your AI Avatar but then it's

42:31 your voice that you recorded but your AI Avatar is actually the one saying those words um and you can also clone your voice so hey Jen clones your voice in the process of cloning your uh yourself but I found that 11 labs and you guys can take notes of this 11 Labs is the best tool to clone your voice so what I did is I cloned My Voice by uploading a voice note to 11 labs and it cloned my voice and then I integrated that voice because it's much better and it's more like me into hey Jen so now I connected my 11 Labs uh cloned Voice to my AI avatar on Hay Jen and all I have to do now is just upload scripts for the AI Avatar to say things that I want it to say or teach people the things that I want to teach people and I don't have to film another thing ever again so that actually is now something been experimenting with in the back endend I haven't yet posted any of this content but my team because my team just hates

43:35 that I'm the bottleneck right so they're like oh we need you to film something so that we can create videos for you but I'm always either on the go traveling or just I'm not in the mood so they now cloned me enough times to be able to just give me a script that I can edit for myself and I can just give that approval and so now they can create all the content about whether it's like vocable tutorials or uh meet each teing you how to use cloud or me teaching you how to clone yourself without actually me having to film that content myself and there is actually a case study where this Tech guy who is only been using now his AI Avatar and is getting 25 million views on his YouTube channel just using his AI Avatar to explain Tech news and you know create content around Tech news and so this is now becoming more and more advanced where you couldn't even tell the difference that it was him and it's actually even more interesting

44:29 because when you just use the AI Avatar and just you know you you flip-flop between the AI Avatar and the graphics and animations you don't have too much time to analyze whether it's an AI Avatar if it's actually a real person so you can't even tell that whether or not it's a real person or it's an AI Avatar and that's kind of how he was able to really grow his his views and channel so I'm like wait a minute this sounds like my dream because I do not want to film another video ever again but I have so much to teach and I love love to kind of create content around like this is how to use AI models this is what the the latest new feature on vocable is or this is how you know Claud is better than chbt I want to create that kind of content but I just don't have the time to do it so now if I'm able to streamline that process because of AI I'm able to teach more people more often but it doesn't take too much out of my

45:18 time so yeah that's hey Jen for you so hey Jen and 11 Labs take note those are definitely two apps you should be looking into now because they getting better and better I would say by the day these AI avatars are looking so good and soon enough by the way you'll be able to change their clothes probably the background you'll be able to customize your AI Avatar it's insane okay so this weekend we're creating mind thank you very much okay so next let's talk a little bit about for the people listening they're like I never know what to do to create content I how does vocable help them can you walk us through a little bit about the vocable process and how people can use it in their life and in their business yeah so I think the biggest thing for me when I was was when it comes to Ai and content creation I had this realization that I felt like we've been thinking about AI content creation all wrong one I feel

46:10 like AI shouldn't just generate content it should also manage your content life cycle which I feel like is where most people struggle right so it's the process it's not just let me write a copy here for a caption or let me write an article here and there it's more like how can I create a process that I can really scale and or and have it organized and repeatable and especially for small businesses they don't have a lot of those resources right to be able to have a whole process in place to create content at scale it's not just like one piece here and there every now and then like one blog post or one guide it's like oh I have a schedule of content calendar for the next month of like 30 pieces of content and I did them all in one sitting like that to me is content success when you're able to really do that create that whole content calendar in one sitting without having to kind of last minute do things on a whim so

47:03 that's one right and then I think the other realization I had is that the real power of AI is not in just oneoff prompts it's in understanding and automating your entire content process and then I also feel like when I had talked to a lot of smell business owners and just even content creators people don't want to become prompt Engineers it's just becoming now this like H I have to figure out how to prompt this is the right way to get what I want out of chat gbt and then I have to do it not once but multiple times for each piece of content separately it becomes more daunting because you think oh AI is helping me create contents quickly but when you think about it if you're trying to create like 30 pieces of content for the next month prompting Chad gbt for each piece of content is a lot of work you know and it's like a lot of back and forth to actually get what you want so basically I thought what if we could use

47:53 AI to fix the entire process not just one piece of of it and so taking basically all these talking points and pain points that I just mentioned um I created vocable with one specific goal and is to transform content creation from a scattered frustrating process into something more automated repeatable and scalable and you know me I'm very process driven so the way we kind of create a vocable is one you don't need to constantly prompt and that's one of the pain points I feel like most people struggle with when it comes to AI um it's more like point and click right so I want to create a Content plan great so I can click on that create new content plan all the prompts are engineered in the backend for you and they're already optimized as well with best practices from contents marketing so instead of using prompt basically we're using briefs right which is like a best practice for Content marketing so the

48:46 process pretty simple so you go into vocable you create your brand right so you want to make sure that your content is on brand and tailor it to your specific topics and Niche and audience you create your brand and all you have to do to create your brand is copy paste your website so our platform scans your website scrapes all the information from there um around like what your industry is what your value proposition is what your business description is and topics and it creates a brand identity for you right and then from that brand identity of course you can edit it and review it as you see fit um you create a full content plan on vocable based on the content you need it could be LinkedIn post YouTube scripts newsletters um blog posts guides whatever it might whatever your business needs you can create a full contents plan with those types of content included in your content plan just from your brand identity and now

49:41 boom within like two minutes less than that you have a full content plan already mapped out for you on vocable and the way and again I'm very process driven the way it's generated is in it looks like a trell board or an air table list or cont calendar right so it comes with briefs so it's not just a list of ideas for your content it's actually ideas that are very detailed like what is your title for that blog post what is the description what is the content structure what is the keywords that you need to use all of that is generated for you uh without again having to prompt and based on that you just start drafting right so you just go down the list of all your content ideas and it drafts all the content for you and now basically to simplify it you've gone from just putting in your website to creating a full content plan with ideas briefs and drafts ready to review in less than five minutes and that's a

50:35 month's worth of content so in one sitting you have completely fulfilled your task of creating a Content calendar for the next month and now at this point all you have to do as a human in the loop is to review and edit the drafts and then make sure of course everything is on brand maybe you want to add more personal storytelling to it again so you're just an editor in this in this platform you're not the Creator anymore you don't have to manage things you don't have to come up with the ideas everything is done for you so that at the end you're just basically editing and reviewing and then scheduling for publishing so my thought process around this is that that was that was basically the step-by-step process I I did for any you know businesses I've done content marketing for or for the startup that I ran before and there is a very specific way of creating content that guarantees content success and so we basically married best

51:29 content marketing practices with AI to simplify a process that many people are either oblivious to or choose to skip because they don't have the resources or are just you know again too busy to implement in a way that actually scales our content and we did it also in a way where you don't feel like you're dealing with AI but rather just a tool that helps you tap and leverage into AI to actually create content that is effective and do it efficiently so who is vocable for who should go to the site right now and check it out uh small businesses content teams you know um content creators as well so anyone who's creating a lot of content pieces on a monthly basis um and and again just to clarify too vocable is mostly uh for text based content so it's not creating video videos it's not creating images but it's creating scripts right so if you have YouTube then it creates YouTube scripts if you have blogs and it creates

52:34 long form blogs blogs if you have Instagram it creates captions and ideas around Instagram posts um and then it creates LinkedIn posts LinkedIn articles so it's really like meaty content that you need to create which I think most people struggle with the most right so keeping up with your blog keeping up with your LinkedIn your uh guides which is for lead generation so creating guides um so yeah for small businesses content teams and content creators anyone who's creating content on a daily basis on a monthly basis which is everybody right everybody needs to be creating content if you're not creating content this is the solution you've been looking for how do they get signed up tell us where to go and how everybody listening can H have vocable start creating this content for them yeah so you go to vocal. a and you start a free trial and there's a very simple uh onboarding that you go through so so

53:26 again that's what this is where you also get a little bit of a glimpse of what it can do for you you can put in your website and it creates a full content plan for you that you accept and then you start a free trial and then boom you're already kind of once you start your free trial you already have a contents calendar made made ready for you at that point just start drafting all right guys go to vocable ai.com and get your free trial now vocable ai vocable doai error monan okay so vocal. a go get signed up for your free- trial and Iman how can people follow you and how can people keep up with you okay I'm all over Instagram and Linkedin I'm very um you know uh interactive with messages so definitely reach out to me so it's Iman ubu m n o u b o u and you can't miss her peeps all right go to vocal. a sign up for the free trial now you can thank us later until next week keep creating your confidence you know I will

54:25 be

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "#460: The Art of Following Your Passion with Iman Oubou, CEO & Co-Founder of Vocable.ai"?

Heather Monahan (Host), Iman Oubou (Guest).

What is "#460: The Art of Following Your Passion with Iman Oubou, CEO & Co-Founder of Vocable.ai" about?

Iman Oubou, CEO and Co-Founder of Vocable.ai, discusses her innovative AI tool designed to simplify content creation for small businesses, addressing common pain points in content marketing. Combining her expertise as a tech entrepreneur and educator, she emphasizes the importance of efficiently navigating the digital landscape while building a personal brand without the overwhelming effort…

What is mentioned in this Heather Monahan episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Artificial Intelligence, Iman Oubou, Vocable AI, Hey Jen, Sway. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#460: The Art of Following Your Passion with Iman Oubou, CEO & Co-Founder of Vocable.ai"?

The episode runs 54 min; the transcript is about 11,023 words in 62 timestamped sections.

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