Adam Torres and Ben Hsieh discuss Synapbox.
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Show Notes:
In this episode, Adam Torres and Ben Hsieh, Co-Founder of Synapbox. Explore crafting compelling narratives and Synapbox.
Watch Full Interview:
About Synapbox
Synapbox helps brands and creators access automated consumer feedback to improve content creation and predict performance.
Their platform collects feedback from biometrics (facial coding and eye-tracking) and contextualizes them using content tagging, survey answers, and performance data. This all-in-one/ready-to-use approach allows them to automate insights, which help creators improve their content and become more predictable with every use of their platform.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and I’m so happy and proud to say I am in Santa Monica, California today, and I am covering AI Vibes. This has been an amazing conference hosted by Tal Navarro and her squad and her team. They put on an amazing event.
I have Ben Hsieh here from Synapse Box, and Ben, I understand you just got done with the pitch competition and some other things. We’re gonna get into that, but first off, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me, Adam. It’s good to be here. All right, Ben. So lots of fun. You just got off stage.
Like, how do you feel? Yeah, it’s been you know, starting off, it’s been a wonderful day here. I love this event, AI Vibes and in Santa Monica and really was able to meet some very interesting people like yourself, right throughout the whole day. The pitch competition was great amongst, you know, fellow entrepreneurs on stage you know, spreading the word, getting our mission out there.
To an audience that will really help us, you know, develop our branding, our messaging throughout the tech ecosystem in the, in the area. Yeah. Were you I see founder, you know, were you always an entrepreneur? Like, was that always a piece of you? Yeah, it’s my you know, third startup now. So you like pain.
Yeah, I might be a little bit sick in the head, I think, for the most part. All entrepreneurs are. This is a real entrepreneur show. If anybody’s been listening for a while, you’re not the first person to say that. You need to have drive and you need to be a little bit funky in the mind. Yes, sir. But yeah, my, my journey for this one in particular is I used to work in venture capital.
I was invested in thing in C to series a startups. We also ran corporate innovation programs. I ran programs for like American Express, Infinity Motors. And that’s actually where I met my co founder, Christina de la Pena, Forbes, Southern 30 MIT innovators been an innovator in the newer marketing consumer research space for over a decade.
And then we really got together to develop this new version of signup box where essentially it’s a fully automated solution. That uses emotional AI eye tracking surveys to understand both biometrical and rational behavior of consumers to really measure creative engagement for, you know, like advertising, packaging and the things that they see to understand what makes them tick.
So, I mean, lots of different things that you could have done, a lot of different areas you could have gone in, in AI or otherwise, like, how did this idea come about? Was it like an aha moment? Was it a, was it a, like, gradual? Was it a, like, how did you get this idea? Yeah. Yeah. So really, I was the one that identified that this was a good idea.
I want to give credit to my co founder, Christina on this one. She really developed it, but I really saw this opportunity. You know, from two perspectives. First of all, because I had the opportunity to work with her, but also with the clients in this case, it was infinity. And I just saw that the clients loved it.
Right. Yeah. And I really saw that there was a good fit there in terms of what the pain point in the customer journey was. So from a business perspective I knew it was going to be a banger, right? It’s going to work, right? So I had a sort of inside information there to, to really help me make that jump.
Well, I’m looking at it too, because for you to, I mean, to, to, to jump over to the other side from the listening to pitches to then giving them, like, that’s a, it’s a, you’re like, you’re going to the other side of the game. It’s not a thing. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. You know and I literally, I packed my bags and moved to San Francisco to really develop this idea.
But I really saw the the commercial applications of this product and that’s where I believe, but even from a personal basis, right? I’ve been very interested in, you know, how people you know, unconscious behaviors, right? I’m also used to be a professional poker player. So you’re reading people was a party thing.
Obviously in negotiation tables, you really have to, you know, stick You know understand what they’re telling you but also what they’re not telling you sure to understand this and you know as human beings We often miss out a lot In terms of what people may see what they think and then the idea of like, oh, why don’t we just get the machine?
To conduct these interviews so we can really catch all the nuances every smile every tick and you know being able to Collect all this information at a very large scale to really understand, You know how how humans really engage with what they see. I just found that fascinating at a very personal level You And so, yeah, they’re really the two reasons that I found the people, people, money.
So did, what did, what did your, what did your yours? And I’ll give you why I’m asking this question. So my background, just to share a little bit. So I was in finance for almost 14 years. I managed a book on a little under 200 million. So I wasn’t a billion dollar guy or anything, but you know, I was comfortable.
And I know when I went off to be an entrepreneur and that’s why I said you went to the other side. When I went to the other side from just my nice, clean, you know, whatever office and like, I’m the white, you know, whatever, like lace, whatever, however we’re supposed to say that saying just straight as an arrow finance guy to being an entrepreneur into pursuing it.
Something else, my whole network was like, Adam, what are you doing? Are you crazy? And it’s, well, I was going into media. So at least you went into AI and technology. technology. So that’s probably a little bit more respected. If you went to media, they might’ve said you’re crazy. But like, how did your network, how’d everybody like respond to this?
I think, you know, the idea itself was very novel. So it was kind of understandable. And I would just explain things that probably, well, a lot of people would say, right, you got to take your shots. Early in life, you know worst case scenario. I can always go back. Things don’t really work out That’s what I would tell myself, but that’s not true.
I couldn’t that’s what we tell other people to make ourselves feel Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, but in reality, no once you cross over it doesn’t work that way. Yeah for me i’m not speaking for you I completely agree. And and again, I think it goes back to our first point, right? It’s the mindset, you know, I think we obviously both are quite adventurous.
Yeah in that sense and we don’t like to sit still. And I think that’s really one of the traits where, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs have, right? And founders that they’re always looking for something. They’re really looking to push the edge, you know, really put themselves out there, right? To really figure out what they’re really about.
Mm. What’s in the name? What’s in the name? Synapses. You know, in a box. Yeah. It’s in that box. And a little tip here, you know, keep things simple and obvious is a really good way to do branding and messaging. And that’s really where it came from, you know, that we’re looking to measure people’s synapses, you know?
Yeah. That’s awesome. Best explanation. Synapses. And it’s in a box. I’ll take it. I’ll take it. So we’re, we’re entrepreneurs here. Big entrepreneur, audience, business owners. Let, let’s, let’s dream for a bit here. What’s, what’s your vision for this company? Like in your wildest dreams? What’s the vision?
Yeah. So the vision has definitely evolved over time. And as everyone knows with the advent of these large language models and creative AI in particular, We can generate on a whim images, videos. However, what we see is lacking is that the, you know, how this. images and videos and content can resonate with the target audience.
So the personalization isn’t quite there yet. So in the, in the near future, and we already work on this in the background is that we want to train creative AI with our unique database of contextualized human emotions in order to create a automatic flywheel where we can use AI to create content, but also go and test it.
Yeah, a specific target audience, optimize it automatically and continue this process until you create a banger, right? Imagine you have a you know, you want to put your ad for this show to make sure that every entrepreneur will click on it Right. So we want to figure out what entrepreneurs like what do they value?
How does it match up with your brand create the first version of that? Test it with them, make the iterations whilst you’re just sitting at home chilling, right? And then make sure that, okay, well then, you know, come back to me and I want to ensure that this is going to get X amount of impression points.
I want the click through rates to be, you know, at a certain level, right? And I want to make sure that every ad dollar I spend, I’m going to get a good return on that. And that’s essentially where we see it, where we train creative AI. With real consumer preferences, super granular to create highly personalized content.
Hmm. What kind of adoption have you gotten so far? And I don’t mean like numbers or clients, things like this. I mean, like what’s the feedback is what I mean. Well, I can talk about clients and trackers so far. You know, we are still an early stage company. I know you just did a pitch, but I’m not trying to put you through the ring.
I know you’ve been doing it. Yeah, but it’s a good time for me to show off a little bit now. Do it. Do it. I love it. I’m in. I’m in. So we’re, we’re very fortunate. This is a very large market, you know, over a hundred billion dollars in size, and we grabbed a you know, a little, little piece of the pie for ourselves.
Yeah. Over a million dollars in revenue last year. I like pie. Congratulations on track. That’s amazing. Yeah. On track, on track to at least, you know, double, maybe triple our big clients to get today include Anheuser Busch. Wow. So, you know, beers, you know, Modelo, Corona, those kind of things. Mm-Hmm. Bimbo.
Grupo. So think tacky Sarah Lee. Mm-Hmm. . We also work with some media companies like Warner Discovery. Mm-Hmm. You know, Tel Visa. Univision we also signed Netflix just about a month ago to help them test out their trailers. We’re also in yeah, two, two regions active in both in the U. S.
as well as LATAM. And the most interesting part to really look at is the, is, is our database, you know, is really rich data. You know, we’re very much focusing on, you know, You know, us Latinos right now, that’s a big, big, big bucket where a lot of our clients are asking for, Hey, we can’t just bucket them all into the same thing.
You know, what do first generation people like what the third Florida, isn’t that so interesting how we like in the past would bucket. So when we talk about like personalization, it’s like even just not just, we, at some point, most of Got good enough to at least recognize different countries, right?
Americans a little insular, right? We got the port. We got the, we are who we are. It is what it is. Yeah. But now to even think about like experience or immigration pattern or generation or when they did or preference, cause they’re all different users, all of them, different bases for sure. Exactly.
They’re all different. And what’s really changed is that they really see it affect their bottom line. Right. That if they throwing out this generic content out there, it’s just not sticking. Right. And especially in this. Super, you know, you know, competitive environment because like, you know, small companies now they can create really cool ads.
And if they know that, Hey, I’m going to target. Third generation only Latinos in LA, they’re going to win, right? Cause they know exactly what their values are. They can evolve their brand identity and value amongst that and really match it with some very simple and easy to understand creative, you know creative communication, right?
For sure. Third generation, much more fluid in speaking English. You can get a bit more complicated of a message, but if you sell into a first generation, for example, you need to keep it really simple because if they don’t understand. What you’re trying to tell them, then how can they buy for sure? We saw that even in a recent Superbowl study that you know, with simple messaging, you have higher attention scores, which correlate to hot six points, higher in purchase intention over that’s real money.
That’s real money. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You know, they didn’t care before because they was, things was working, but now things aren’t working. They’re like, Hey, wait a minute. And it’s only going to get even more personalized. Then it’s going to come down to names and this and add like the dynamic and that, like it’s just going to get.
Further and further personalized, which I’m okay with. Yeah, I’m okay with it. Cause to me, it’s a better experience. Like it’s a better experience. It’s better experience. The opportunities are there. Yeah. You can already do hyper targeting on YouTube, right? You can, you can, you can get your item from who you want, you know, to, to the.
To the age, to the location, right? But then why are you still sending a general ad to them? If you can already, you know, if it’s already set up, it’s called flushing your money down the toilet. That’s why you’re doing it because you don’t know any better yet. You don’t know any better. You don’t figure out who your audience was.
An example I gave was, you know, Pepsi. A few years ago, they launched a campaign with Kendall Jenner who essentially you know, got ridiculed by the public, right? Because they were you know, make, make it look like a small deal, like the social movements and stuff. And that. Completely destroyed their reputation for a bit.
They’ve lost a bunch of sales Stock price went down a little bit which who would have thought like a misstep in marketing could do that with a company like that That’s been around for decades. So all of that brand equity all that money Thousands and thousands of people that have worked to get it where it’s at and one misstep.
It’s like it’s scary It’s to me. It’s scary from the standpoint of like the bigger you are like I always tell people like you’re like Oh adam, why don’t you do this this I said You You know, our level right now is a luxury. It’s a luxury to try and be smaller as for certain things, as long as you can, while you’re figuring out some things, like, cause you get that much, whatever in many businesses, not just media, like it’s danger.
It is danger. And there’s, you know, Pepsi was big enough to survive, right? Imagine there’s our companies or imagine a CPG company that hit this rate, this wave, and it just grew during the pandemic. And now they misstepped and they had all, they have all these employees and hired up. I mean, it’s real things like people’s families like are affected, like people, jobs are lost.
Like, yeah, it’s real things. Mortgages, 10, 000 employees, that’s 10, 000 families. Yeah. So then you look at that. That and then you think about like, what is at stake with the marketing campaign or like the reach and the tools we have and like what we do, like it’s, it’s, it’s becomes more and more serious.
Like we’re one misstep in the past. Wouldn’t it got to everybody now? Yeah, gotta be careful. Exactly. And and we really feel like what we’re doing is very important to, you know, the whole workflow in, in the marketing systems, like I’ll ask this question, right? Oh, Hey, my brand identity is a little bit confusing.
And the answer to that is because you probably haven’t. You know, you, you making too many assumptions of what your audience really wants. Yeah. Maybe what you’re assuming was what they wanted last year. Man, my preferences changed from yesterday to today. You know, why are you assuming that? Mine changed from this morning.
Yeah, exactly. Right. So that’s why like, you know, testing all the time and making sure you just have a pulse is like almost an insurance policy, man. For sure. You know, if you’re not like, if you don’t know who you’re selling to, then How can you convince them to do anything? Whether it’s trying to sell them a beer or you’re trying to win their vote, right?
Elections are coming up. You know, these are, you know, you know, who you’re selling to, who you’re talking to in order to really get their attention and, you know, push them in the direction you want them. Amazing. Well, Ben, this has been great. I know you got to get back to the conference. That being said, I want you to look into the camera to everybody, how they can follow you, your company, learn more.
Yes. Well, thank you, Adam, for today. It was lovely chatting to you. You can find me on LinkedIn at you know, Ben Shea. I’m sure the details will be there. You can go to the website signup box dot com. And if you are in the marketing capacity or creative or in consumer insights, we would love to talk to you.
And we’re also raising money soon. So yeah, in that case for anyone in those personas, please contact me. Say hello. Wonderful. And for everybody listening, yeah, we’ll put the, we’ll put that information in the show notes. You can just click on the links and speak, speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe button.
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And Ben, again, thank you so much for making time for us. Yep. Great podcast. Do subscribe guys. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you.
