Polly Barnfield: ON Sticking to your vision and making AI your ally

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Hello and welcome to the Miracast, the show that puts you on the fast track to business confidence. Polly Barnfield OBE is an incredible bundle of energy. She's the CEO and founder of maybe, which is dedicated to making AI secure and simple and transforming how ambitious businesses can harness it without any technical know how. More than that, though, she has a great story to tell us in this week's Miracast. It somehow takes in an early passion for horses ahead of going to university, realizing that she wouldn't make a great employee for anyone else. Taking instructions was not my bag, she says, right through to today and the world of AI chatgpt and so on. We'll hear more of all that, but her story is full of powerful metaphors and well worth a listen. So here we go.

So I have to start at the beginning, really. I. I had, I got a place to do medicine when I did my A levels and had one of those lovely year out. But something happened on my year out that really changed my life, which is that I'd been lent a horse because we got the wherewithal to, to buy one and I got shortlisted to ride on a British team. Sounds quite crazy, but I did and I, my father said to me, well, if you do that, you can't, you can't, you can't have a horse and go to university. So I said, well, I'll go and get a job. So I never went to university to do medicine. Instead I spent 10 years riding horse and got clients and ended up running business. And yeah, I went fast and jump jumps and broke lots of bones, had massive fun, did win some medals, which is even better. But my inspiration at that point was I just wanted to, I just wanted to win and I loved what I doing. I'm probably an adrenaline junkie at heart, but I didn't really, I didn't really sort of often think about the consequences. So when I got to 30, I realized that I'd got. I'd got some very good A levels, but I'd skipped education and I was now good at going fast and jumping Germans, but didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. I had to. Had a crossroads, I think you'd say.

Was that an instinctive decision then? I mean, did you just. Did it take you very long to make that decision? You know, sort of horses or university? I mean, was that, was that instinctive? Did you so agonize over it?

No, it was totally, totally irrational. I'd been to Lily Whites in London and queued up to buy A tailcoat, which they'd had in the sale. And the fact I'd done that meant that I had to do it. Yeah, totally rational, irrational, and how I make most my decisions, to be honest.

Right, okay. All right, so what was your, what was your next key irrational decision that you made?

Was that. Actually I didn't, I didn't probably ought to do that for the rest of my life. So. Age 30, I went to work for a web design company in Birmingham. The Internet at that point was brand new. I was pretty computer literate as a scientist, if you like, and I'd been running my own business. I'd got 60 staff and, you know, 10 staff and 60 clients. You know, I turned the equestrian thing into a business but didn't want to do that forever, so went and worked for this web design company and realized I was unemployable. I mean, really, you know, taking all instructions from somebody else, just not my bag. So after two years there, I started my own age and after two years doing that, one of the, one of the people I was working with was a volunteer fundraiser, Save the Children, which led us to me say, well, come on, we should be able to use the Internet to raise money for children, raise money for charity. And we started a business called Every Click that the idea behind it was that we, for every pound we generated, we gave 50p to charity and we built the fourth biggest search engine in England, a search engine called EveryClick, which was great until Google said, actually you can't use my search feed to incentivize search. They were concerned that the advertisers were being, people were being encouraged to click on the ads. So they turned it off and then we switched to Yahoo, but that's not as profitable. So he moved the, move the business to something called give as you live and it's still running today and it's raised over £13 million for charity. Which is really exciting.

I mean, it's very exciting. I mean, I, I, I, I sort of had no idea about the scale of, of that what, when you were, when you were going through that process, you know, of sort of, you know, the charitable givers you live and, and so on. Having sort of already sort of built up, you know, your, your entrepreneurial sort of credentials in, in, in the, you know, in terms of turning your equestrian ventures into a sort of, into a business. What, what, what was kind of driving you that stage? Was it a sort of altruistic or was it just the fun of the challenge or, or what was, what was Kind of in you at the time, was it just a restlessness? I'm just interested.

I think I'm hardwired to. I, I love, I love doing things that help others. So when we get to where I currently am, that, that, that comes through again. You know, you're meant to be in business to make money. And money for me is the, is one of the products. I think the, what matters most. We're each here for one visit only, aren't we? Don't get, we don't get to do this again. So you've got to have, you got to have a number of outcomes and you know, you got to enjoy the team we work with and you've got to enjoy the output of your business. So. And I, and I'm an innovator. I look when I'm not building tech, I like to garden. So, you know, I like, I like creating things. I like, I like growing big flowers. And so in business I like to. Yeah, I'm an innovator. I like to, I like to build something new. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So there's, there's, there's an innovation sort of side, side to you that's sort of driving you along. I mean, just, just. I'd like to understand though, the sort of like the little bit of, of, of the journey. So there's a sort of charitable aspect to, to doing, but how does that build up then to founding maybe? I just want to know what inspired you to start that business.

Oh, that's great. Another great question. So with Give as you Live, we brought in a, an investor, a number of investors, but we bought in one particular investor who was brilliant for the business, absolutely brilliant for the business, but we just maybe didn't quite have the same view on life. And I'd been there 10 years and I just thought this is, I'm fighting with a business that I don't like, I don't like doing this anymore. I don't like doing this. I don't like the environment I'm working in. So with mutual agreement, I went on gardening leave. And whilst on gardening leave, I, I was thinking about how really we've been very involved in the Internet and quite early days of the Internet, to be honest, and had seen how people's journeys to make decisions were actually really invisible and maybe came about because, because I was trying to buy some doorknobs. Sounds insane. Sounds insane, but it's true. And I, my husband and I were, were moving to another part of England and I was, I'd left, been left in the Cotswolds getting a house sold, which, and it needed quite a lot of work. And I was trying to justify buying some ridiculously expensive doorknobs. I don't know what I was thinking about, but, you know, I just, I just, if we didn't buy these doorknobs, the house wouldn't sell. Another irrational decision, undoubtedly. But I was trying to show them to him and I realized that I was looking at things online offline and all of this conversation was going on, but the retailer would never be able to see it because they couldn't see my journey. All of the, you know, all of the. Despite the fact that, you know, I knew everything about cookie tracking and online tracking and the way commission was tracked online, businesses actually are shielded from 98% of the decision making that goes into making a purchase. And so maybe started as we wanted to create a platform that helped businesses understand the journey, the decisions, the, you know, how, how people were getting to make the buying purchase and how you could help them. Because actually all of the graphs you see right now and the tracking is hidden. It's really hidden because you can't see most of, most of what decision making is actually going on in social. You're chatting to people saying, hey, have you seen this thing? You got the saying, you know, what do you think about this thing? And it's all, it's all, it's all multi layers of conversation. And so maybe the reason it's called maybe is because life is just one big decision. And actually there's more maybes in life than anything else. So that's how maybe got his name. And yeah, we've been on a, on a very journey with it and I'm incredibly excited about where it is now.

Okay, we'll get on to that in a minute. I'm interested in the, in the early days of, of maybe, was it, was it tricky explaining that concept to people? Because, I mean, were there some people who said yes, I don't know about the journey people make to make the decision. And I'm, and I'm not sure I, I want to know either. Was it, was there an interest in, in what you were saying? I mean, how did you get that sort of message across?

I, I'm, I, my skill is building technology because clearly you can say I went to university and learned how to do that. She says, jokingly. My, my, my skill is, is in translating a problem, getting people to, to deliver it so that, you know, as a founder, you've got to, you've got to be able to gather a team of people around you and achieve stuff. Right? And as in order to get investors to back your idea, you've got to be very good at articulating it. So what's really interesting is that what maybe does today, which we'll talk about at the moment, spoiler alert. Don't go away, is very different from, from where I started. But actually the core mission and vision and proposition of the company is exactly the same, which is fundamentally, how do we help businesses do better business? So what the itch we were trying to scratch is it's really hard to understand, to understand and influence how people make purchases. That was the problem we were trying to fix. And, you know, once you start looking at the data and you realize how, how much waste there is in business because how much, how much time is wasted with people trying to try to try to do things that they can't because they can't see the data and all that sort of stuff, it became, you know, I was, I was back in startup land. I, I must have written a hundred pitches, probably more. I must have delivered a thousand pitches, it feels like, to, to raise money. And I'm still raising money today. And I think the whole business of being a founder is accepting you actually don't know what tomorrow holds and having a little bit of excitement with that. You know, we're all tied to write business plans and all the rest of it. But the truth is with being an entrepreneur is the plan gives you a point on the map that you're planning to get to. And the trick is to get there. The plans you write will give you a route that tells you one thing, but other things will happen that mean you have to navigate round blocks and skirt the icebergs. Or maybe you clip them and they take a bit off you. It's all about survival. It's all about prepared, being prepared to say, I'll get up every day and it will be probably be harder than the last, but hell, I love it.

And the plan that you set out with, maybe you're saying is more or less the same plan that you what have now, or is the plan itself evolved?

Oh, the plan has evolved massively, but the vision has remained the same. And I think that's what, that's the key thing as an entrepreneur is my vision, my personal vision is to win, in that I'm hardwired to win. That's why, that's why I end up running horse, because I like to win. But I love the relationship you've got to have with that horse. And being a founder is no different from that. You've got to love the relationship you have with the team. If you don't, if you don't find people you like with to work with, you won't do it. So they've got to be better than you. They're going to be better than the other things that you're not very good at. So. And you've got to hang on to that gritty, I know, I know what I want to achieve, but I think the most important thing is you have that sort of fundamental piece of humanity in you that says, I'm probably wrong, but I'm prepared to stick to my guns about the things I need to be right about. You've got to be prepared to be quite hard nosed about where you're going, but be very prepared to listen about how you get there because your plan will be wrong. Your vision can be right, but your plan can be wrong. And as long as you are prepared to change your plan but stick to your vision, you're probably going to do it. Does that make any sense?

It does, it does. It makes me think of the old General Eisenhower quote, that plans are useless, but planning is essential. Is that, is that a fair way of putting it or not?

100, 100. And embrace planning. Love it. Because planning is where the ideation comes from. That's a very big word. Planning is where actually the better ideas come from. Planning is where you work out how you're going to achieve your vision. And it will change because circumstances around you change. And where maybe is now is totally because circumstances changed.

Okay, let me, let me just ask you then in terms of ads, sort of, maybe sort of starts and then grows sort of back in what, 2014, so about 10 years ago. I think that you then take on your sort of first employees. I mean, what were you looking for in them? Were they just, were you just looking for people who thought like you, acted like you, or people who didn't think and act like you?

Oh my God, I never want anybody to think snacks like me because I'm a nightmare would never employ me ever. So, so start off with, yeah, I founded the company in 2014, but we didn't really start. I kept, I kept sort of poking it for a few years and didn't really, it, the company didn't really become a thing. I kept, I kept thinking about it and coming back to my notes and writing about it. It didn't really start motoring probably until five or six years ago. So you know, there's no harm in starting a thing and you don't have to, you don't have to be smashing the numbers the first time. You know, just start. The key thing I say start, and then in order to employ people, you need to be very clear about what you're doing. And I was still, you know, I was doing some consulting and I was scratching around the edges of how, how we actually fix this thing with a piece of technology. And it wasn't until I got that point I started hiring some people. And the first hires were people that actually just invested in the idea and worked alongside me. So they're co founders and they. The first person that I sought was a ct, a cto, so Chief Technical Officer, because it was all about building great technology. And I can say what I want, but it's how do you build it? And a lovely lady who I work with. What I'm really lucky is that a number of people I work with at Give as you live join the ship. Along the way, I think three in the end have joined us at different stages of the journey. So what I look for when I'm building my team is I want people that are much, much better than me at a specific thing. I'm a generalist. Yeah. I'm the conductor of the orchestra. I'm the chef in the kitchen that's got to find the right ingredients. And so you want to find people that are complimentary but stupendously better than you at the thing you need them to do.

Okay, let's talk a little bit more about your business then. Your business revolves around integrating AI into businesses. And we've had sort of recent conversations about this. But what about your own AI in your, in your business? I, I mean, have you ever struggled to integrate AI into your business? Are there any areas where it's worked far more effectively than you anticipated or, or vice versa? I mean, what's your, what's your own experience of grappling with, with AI?

So the reason we are where we are today is, is because of exactly that. So maybe actually started to take off about six years ago when we won a government contract. And that government contract was for us to understand the conversation that 3.9 million businesses were having on social media. The reason that. So if I just wind back about the reason that we're good at data is because with the Give as you live business, the, the hard nut of that that we cracked was to be able to distribute funds to160,000 UK charities that that business Said, whatever charity you want to give your money to, you can choose a charity. So I'm very. I'm all about data. I'm all about data. So I didn't tell you that earlier on. Sorry. But with maybe the. The government contract was about the High Street Task. It was for something called the High Street Task Force, which is all about understanding, you know, what it took to make places thrive. And I said, look, you know, 92% of us are spending, 82% of us make a decision on social media. But I know because of the sort of thinking we were doing about maybe that the businesses aren't in that channel. And it's really interesting. So when we crawl the data for 3.9 million businesses in the UK and every day listen to what they're saying on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or X Facebook and Instagram, and we grouped it by each high street, so 3600 high streets, and then determined what people were saying and are they happy or sad. So that was a lot of AI. We were using AI back then extensively. And then because of that contract, we started to win contracts to train businesses. Because what the data said is that only 19% of companies are active on social media, which is crazy, because that's where the conversation is happening. That's where the customer is talking about what they're going to buy, what they do, where they're looking at, where they're going to. You know, it's where our inspiration comes from. But businesses were really struggling to keep up. And so we took that data and built a lovely set of tools that let companies see what was being said in the town and how that all worked. And we got to the point where we were training 25,000 businesses and the contracts were good, but they weren't enough to pay to a person, enough people to do that well. And we realized that also a lot of the questions that were being asked were the same, so we're asking the same questions all the time. So, yeah, you could just do FAQs, but the thing is that businesses that are coming for help, scared, they're fed up, they're fed up of trying to find the answer. So I didn't want to. I didn't want to leave them stranded. We wanted to be able to serve them. So we used AI to be able to do customer support. And we got really good at it. You know, today we can service over a thousand people a day and get an answer to them within 13 seconds. And people honestly don't know it's AI if they ask if it's AI we tell them it's AI but they'll. They talk to us about the weather, their dogs, what they're having for supper, recipes, and the AI never misses a beat. Now we looked at this two years ago and said, this is insane. And what's really interesting about it is that the majority of questions we are being asked about social media with what, what do we say? What, what should we say as a company? How do we. The reason we're not writing content and, and creating social content is because actually we can't create content full stop. We're too busy running business, we're too busy, you know, running around making business work. And we're not content creators. And social media has made us all have to be content creators. And so I said to the team, well, why don't we turn what we've built internally into something that our clients can use? And we did that and we, and we, I mean, integrated that with our social media platform and companies loved it, Absolutely loved it. But then we realized. Sorry, no, no, no, I was just

going to say, I said why? I mean, I'm just, I keep thinking about the stat that you just gave me a few minutes ago, around the 19%, only 19% of people use social media and the link that you then made to AI. Why are people reticent? Why are businesses so reticent? Is there a sort of hostility around it, A, A lack of understanding? I'm just, I'm just interested in that. I know you've been sort of researching a lot into this area recently.

A fascinating question. So, you know, whilst of that 82% of us on social media, I mean there's something staggering like less than 2% of people are content creators, that we're all, we're all watchers. We're watchers and we might hit that like button and comment and have a rant, but actually as regards creating content, it's not, it's being on stage, public speaking, all of those things. Which is, which is what creating social content is, is something that many of us don't like doing. You know, you're going to be judged and all those things. But so individually we're consuming, we're consuming social media posting a bit. But you know, there's a real gap between how as an individual use it and those people are absolutely thumping it with content creation. Yeah, yeah. And it's like getting pub, you know, you, do you want to stand up and hold fort or do you just want to chat with your mates? What's the human condition.

Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a great answer to my, to my, to my question on that. I, I, the whole area is so fascinating and I could spend ages on this, but I'm not going to sort of now. Yeah. So I'm going to fight my sort of temptation. I want to ask you a, a question, though, about. You've talked about winning, you know, two or three times now in the courses of, of the interview. And in business, do you ever actually win? I mean, there's, there's, there's a point where you've had a success or you've had to target, but it's not a sort of, it's not that you don't reach the end of the competition like in, you know, with the horses, where you win, you know, the competition or the win the gold medal or things like that. It's an ongoing thing. So how are you defining winning? I'm interested in what you're doing because business is like an ongoing thing rather than a sort of finite thing.

Yeah, it's really interesting. So, yeah, winning for me is being, is fighting the next day. Winning for me is making sure the team have a great place to work and the team grows and we hire great people. Winning for me is giving a great return for my shareholders. Winning for me is delivering huge value to our customers. And I think I want to come back to talking about maybe, if I may, winning with maybe. And the AI product we're building is allowing any size of business, regardless of technical capability or resource, to be able to use AI to improve their results, save time and create a better environment to work. Because going back to that data around social media, what it taught us is that actually in this technology revolution that we are all in, it's incredibly hard to keep up and do good business. And so the whole social media thing, and as you say, we bumped into each other through talking to me, talking to agencies, the whole business of creating content, understanding data, stitching data together is consuming a vast amount of time, but being pretty unproductive because it's just really hard. And so winning for me with business is solving that problem. And I arrive in London on the train and I think one day I want to know that everybody's going to work and it's going to be using our product. That's the vision, if you like, that's the feel of what I want to do. And the byproduct of that means that I'm creating great, great team and I'm delivering great return to My shareholders. You said an interesting thing, which is winning with a horse was very binary. You won a thing or you didn't, but the truth is you won a thing one day and then you were only as good as your next result. And I. That for me is the same as business. Because, you know, Nokia started as a business selling tires, but it had to pivot to do mobile phones to succeed. Maybe started with one vision and we've embraced AI because we got really good at AI and we're now turning it into product. We got good at AI internally and we're now turning actually a little tiny percentage of our business into the main part of our business because the world's changed, AI has changed the game. And I can see in the same way that we saw with the data, with social media, businesses were struggling to adopt that gap is going to get bigger if they don't have the tools to use AI well.

So is that the next result for you then, in terms of maybe as a, as a business sort of meeting that challenge that people are, are facing? Just tell me a little bit about the sort of the near future, if you like.

Yeah, new future. Us is very clear, which is that we believe that November 22nd, when ChatGPT was released, everything changed. Because suddenly AI wasn't something that a bunch of technologists could use. It was something that everybody could touch and feel and try. But in truth, ChatGPT is a playground that actually provides a set of developer tools to make it better. Because once you used it a bit, you realize that unless you keep telling it every single time who you are, it gets a bit bland and a bit repetitive. And you know that that's like just creating bad copy. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't just. You can't just create volume to create results. You've got to create quality. What we believe with maybe today is that we provide a safe space for everybody to put their business secrets. Because you don't want to just put your secrets in the wind with GPT and let it train the models on. You need to put it in a safe place. And then you need to let your team be able to ask how to create social content, create presentations, create sales decks, create press releases, whatever it is. And I mean create the first draft. I think AI is our, is our ally. It's our place where we brainstorm. It helps you stitch together huge amounts of data and get an answer from it. But treat it like a team member, treat it like the first draft and then go and Add your magic sprinkles as a human being. Go make it better. Let it take the golden thread of your company and enable all of your team to understand. I don't know what the latest stock package has changed to, how you've just changed the way you talk about the products, because it makes all of us able to do our work better. It's not about taking jobs, it's about letting us do our jobs better. And that was maybe what we're really focused on is how do you enable any company to do that safely and securely? Because if you haven't got a tech team and you haven't got technical knowledge, you're getting any little tiny piece of AI or you're getting AI in every product you use. It doesn't know how to be you. And what our vision is, is how do we let everybody have access to use this amazing tool? Because it is amazing, but you need to. You need to take the wrappers off it and drive it, not just sort of poke it from the outside.

Do you know, I think that's one of the best descriptions I've. I've heard and of around sort of AI, about it being part of the team. But to add, I think you said human sprinkles on top, and I really, I really, really like that as, as a, as a way of talking about it. Now, we want to give listeners the confidence they need to succeed. I mean, I'm interested in the lessons that you have learned along the way. I'm sure there are many in terms of. In terms of being an entrepreneur and also whether there's any advice you would give to, you know, people just starting out.

Can I be brutal? Of course it's gonna be horribly tough. You're gonna get a bloody nose. But, oh, boy, I could have a load of fun. You've just, you know, it's not for everybody. And I would be nobody without the amazing team that worked for me. So just be prepared. You are getting in the ring and you're gonna get punched on the nose. And if that's not for you, that's. That's not a problem. But go and find, Go and find somebody that is prepared to be punched in the nose and work for them. So, yeah, I don't know how you get trained to be an entrepreneur. I don't know whether you're hardwired for it. I think I probably was because I would be the worst employee in the land. But you've got to, if you're the worst employee on the land, possibly because you think you're always right. The hardest thing to do then as a founder, is to accept you're wrong most of the time. So it's a really strange blend, which is you want to be able to follow your own vision, but you've got to be prepared to bring a team with you and listen to them and sift and work out. Is actually what they're saying the right way to get to that place on the map you want to get to when you might think there's another route? And that whole business of being able to empower great people to help you achieve the vision, but actually collectively be prepared to jink and turn and twist and duck and dive as you go through the battlefield. Because it is a battlefield, I'm afraid. And it, you know, external things will change the you know, we're living in a very uncertain world where all sorts of things can change how you get to your end goal. But look, if you like a little bit of scrapping, but love working and achieving an outcome, there isn't a better life. But it's it's not plain sailing, but it's, it's a load of fun.

Polly tells her story so well. Being an entrepreneur is going to be tough. She says you'll get punched on the nose and that even though you're the founder, you're probably, probably still wrong most of the time. So you might as well get used to it. And on chat GPT I love her positive take on its ability to let us do our jobs better by providing that human magical sprinkling on top of its work. So thank you to Polly for being such a great guest and thank you to you all for tuning in. And if you enjoyed today's episode, we'd love you for you to subscribe, rate and review through our usual podcast provider. And if you want to find out more about the Miracast or our business, Meribor Media, you can find us on LinkedIn. Don't forget to join us for our next episode and until then, thanks for listening.