In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Anthony Sapountzis welcomes Mykhaylo Shaforostov, Co-Founder and CEO of Stealth AI. Mykhaylo shares his remarkable journey from Ukraine to Canada and across the globe, culminating in his current venture in Australia. With a rich background in companies like Nortel Networks, AppDynamics, and New Relic, Mykhaylo brings a wealth of experience to the table. In this episode, he delves into the evolution of his startup, Stealth AI, and their groundbreaking AI application, AIMMe. Designed to provide...
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Anthony Sapountzis welcomes Mykhaylo Shaforostov, Co-Founder and CEO of Stealth AI. Mykhaylo shares his remarkable journey from Ukraine to Canada and across the globe, culminating in his current venture in Australia. With a rich background in companies like Nortel Networks, AppDynamics, and New Relic, Mykhaylo brings a wealth of experience to the table. In this episode, he delves into the evolution of his startup, Stealth AI, and their groundbreaking AI application, AIMMe. Designed to provide businesses with quick and insightful AI readiness evaluations, AIMMe is set to revolutionize how companies integrate AI into their operations. Join us as Mykhaylo discusses the challenges, pivots, and successes of his entrepreneurial journey and the exciting future of Stealth AI.
Having been born in Ukraine, educated in Canada, and worked across the US, Singapore, and Australia, Myk recounts his career journey, starting at Nortel Networks and moving through various roles in pre-sales and engineering management at companies like AppDynamics and New Relic. Driven by a desire to embrace new challenges, Mykhaylo left a secure director position to venture into the AI sector, aiming to avoid future regrets and make a mark in the evolving technology landscape.
Mykhaylo discusses the importance of structure and process in both large enterprises and startups. He reflects on his experience at AppDynamics, where the initial lack of a defined sales process led to inconsistent results until strong leadership introduced structured methodologies. Mykhaylo emphasizes that while startups need the flexibility to experiment and adapt, having a vision of the necessary processes for scaling is crucial. He highlights the need for a balance between being nimble in the early stages and establishing consistent processes for growth.
Mykhaylo shares his journey through multiple pivots in his startup, Stealth AI, and reflects on the differences between corporate and startup environments. He talks about the initial challenges and humility he faced despite his extensive corporate experience and network, realizing that these alone do not guarantee success. Mykhaylo also discusses the lessons learned from the dotcom and crypto bubbles, emphasizing the importance of the right mindset and execution plan. He highlights the excitement and drive behind his current venture, acknowledging the contrasting benefits of the corporate world's structure and the startup's dynamic nature.
Anthony and Mykhaylo delve into the complexities of finding the right co-founder for a startup. Mykhaylo emphasizes that finding a suitable co-founder is often more challenging than generating a business idea, stressing the need for complementary skills and mutual reliability. Anthony adds that unlike corporate hiring, co-founders need to manage tasks independently and align on strategic decisions. Mykhaylo reflects on his own experiences with previous co-founders, recognizing their value in different stages of the company's growth, and highlights the importance of overlap in skills and vision for a successful partnership. Both agree that the right co-founder relationship can significantly enhance a startup's ability to pivot and grow.
Mykhaylo shares the journey of his startup's numerous pivots before finding success with their current AI application, AIMMe. AIMMe is designed as an AI maturity model assessment chatbot that helps businesses quickly gauge their AI readiness. By addressing market needs with a unique competitive advantage, AIMMe offers insightful evaluations and solutions that visualize and control AI interactions in real time. Mykhaylo discusses the challenges they faced in understanding AIMMe’s operations and how they developed strategies to make AI more accessible and understandable for non-technical business owners. This approach aims to simplify the complexities of AI integration and foster a more intuitive understanding of AI's impact.
The conversation then shifts to the rapid integration of AI, particularly chatbots, into businesses. Mykhaylo highlights the complexities and potential pitfalls of this trend, emphasizing the importance of understanding and accurately measuring AI's impact. He introduces the concept of cognitive load as a more intuitive metric for assessing AI performance. Mykhaylo also shares the progress of Stealth AI in developing user-friendly, transparent AI solutions and expresses a keen interest in collaborating with potential customers and investors to refine and scale their offerings.
Useful Links
Mykhaylo Shaforostov | LinkedIn
Stealth AI | LinkedIn
AIMMe | App
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