Who First

Understanding your customer is the most important thing you can do.

To serve a prospect or customer, you HAVE to understand them.
To improve your outcomes, you HAVE to measure the people behind the KPI.
To work effectively, your team MUST be able to communicate and collaborate on audience understanding.

The Who First toolset equips companies and organizations to:
* Develop a practical and measurable understanding of their audiences
* Serve their audiences better, doing more with less
* Measure their outcomes better, learning why things work
* Create audience focused teams, so everyone is rowing in the same direction

Principal and Creator

JoshOakes.com - Advisor on Customer Acquisition & Product Development

Understanding your customer is always the most important thing.

I help you understand, build for, and acquire customers. So you can serve your customers better.

Through fractional leadership, training, and advising I help organizations define and understand their audiences, build products and experiences for them, and acquire customers.

I've worked with app, SaaS, social network, education, media, agency, healthcare, and entertainment companies.

Advisor to Investors, Executives, and Entrepreneurs

duckscore / OwnIt

People should know exactly what it takes to realize the dream of homeownership.

OwnIt Holdings is bridging the gap between consumer fin-tech and prop-tech. We are building tools to enable consumers to view themselves more like a lender sees them.

Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer

Measurable Advantage: Eliminate bottlenecks in your customer acquisition

I help organizations improve marketing performance with a structured approach to developing more sophisticated and effective marketing operations. This brings focus to marketing activities, clarity to marketing priorities, and visibility to marketing performance.

I work typically with organizations that have: 
— Multiple digital touchpoints or channels
— A high touch or multitouch acquisition process
— Longer term relationships with customers
— Mission-orientation

Principal

[meta]marketer

Responsible for leading department staff, overseeing all client work and development of all processes, frameworks, and templates.
Client work consisted of researching and analyzing digital marketing efforts including web analytics data, paid search, organic search, social media, content marketing, CRM and marketing automation data to deliver strategic and tactical insight for the improvement of efficiency and efficacy of digital marketing efforts.
Served as the primary interface with client stakeholders across multiple teams–including Marketing, Product Development, Technology, and Management–and at various levels. This included auditing, troubleshooting, and implementation assistance at the tactical level up to strategy, reporting, and feedback to the C-Suite.
Developed propriety training offerings and all materials and content. Conducted in depth training workshops and seminars garnering universally positive feedback from clients in small to medium sized companies across numerous industries.

Director of Optimization (Director of Client Services)

NoiseTrade

Worked alongside founding partners, providing User Experience, Analytics, and Product Development  consulting. Also assisted with customer support issues to collect “voice of customer” data from customers (artists) and users (fans/visitors).

Product Development and Support

MacAuthority

Promoted from Technical Sales for local and regional corporate accounts to Service Manager. Responsible for ensuring that the service department provides an ideal customer experience through the consistent, timely, accurate completion of all service requests; also responsible for ensuring compliance with company and partner policies in addition to overseeing the training and certification of department staff, maintenance of department resources and conditions and ensuring that department utilization, profitability, and customer satisfaction metrics meet or exceed company goals.

Service Manager

The MacSuperstore

Responsible for ensuring that the service department provides an ideal customer experience through the consistent, timely, accurate completion of all service requests; also responsible for ensuring compliance with company and partner policies in addition to overseeing the training and certification of department staff, maintenance of department resources and conditions and ensuring that department utilization, profitability, and customer satisfaction metrics meet or exceed company goals.

Alpha Digital Solutions, LLC

Responsible as VP of Product Development for developing and documenting product requirements, prototyping user interfaces, and identifying product opportunities. Served as primary liaison and project manager to outsourced development team.

VP Product Development

Bay Leaning, Inc.

Front End and User Interface development and Engineering Management for a SaaS startup targeting higher-education institutional customers.

Engineering Manager, UI Engineer

Understanding your customer is always the most important thing. They're the ones with the money.

I won’t stop saying it: Understanding your customer is always the most important thing. They're the ones with the money.

Want to talk? https://whofirst.link/schedule

When you're using the Who First Framework you will:
• Create products & experiences that make your customers say "Oh sh!t!"
• Create Create content that hits your customer’s bullseye.  

What that means:
• How to capture real insights from your actual customers 👉 not rest on your collective biases and assumptions.
• How to DOCUMENT and VALIDATE Audience Profiles 👉 instead of made-up personas and bullsh!rt ICPs.
• How to make your customer understanding ACTIONABLE 👉 instead of just dumping it on your shared drive and never looking at it again.
• How to MEASURE your outcomes with the tools and systems you use  so you can actually 👉 move the needle.

How:
• Done With You and Done For You services
• Advising execs
• Self-service tools and templates

More about Who First: who-first.co
More about me: joshoakes.com

Joshua Oakes

"Can we customize the main navigation in HubSpot for the user/team?"

"Hold on, let me update the count of times I've been asked that."

HubSpot + AI for Franchises & Understanding your customer is always the most important thing. I grew a 43 pound watermelon 🍉 and then ate it in 1 day. 🤘

You know what sucks? Configuring a view (Deal, Company, Contact) for your users, having them tell you it isn’t what they want and you have to ask them to share their screen so you can see what they see.

With all the configuration controls we have now—conditional cards on in all the columns, conditional tabs—we can really tailor views for the teams we support.

There is SO much power in the new capabilities. A separate Sales view for Deals that are open Closed Won and Closed Lost. A customer record view for Execs and another for Finance.

But there are a lot of moving pieces and testing and previewing those configurations is WAY WAY to challenging.

Right now the options are:
1. Change your Team as an Admin and then change it back (which can disrupt a LOT of things)
2. Login as another user (”masquerade”). Which alerts them that you were logging in as them and is WAY overkill.

I want Admins to be able to view a record using a view assigned to another team, ideally toggling between the configure screen and record preview so we can text the views we’re putting together.

We want to WOW our users with the views we build them, not annoy them.

What's on your #hubspotholidaywishlist?

Ionio

I run Ionio - We are a GPT4 & LLM, AI consulting company. We specialize in training, integrating & deploying LLMs (GPT4, ChatGPT, Alpaca) and other generative AI technologies into existing products and services - enabling up to 20x increase in efficiency and up to 90% operational automation.

Our end-to-end solution covers everything from ideation, development to seamless integration in 6-10 weeks. Value-based billing. 10x ROI Guarantee.

• We built Pumice.ai for Width.ai, a GPT4-powered E-Commerce taxonomy SaaS built with Python - React, Celery, Django, Redis, AWS & Docker in ~10 weeks.

• We helped ClearlyTrained with the strategy, research, ideation & product design of their in-house GPT4-powered eLearning Content solution in 4 weeks. GPT4, Python & NodeJS.

• We built Revvyco.com, an AI-powered revenue optimization platform in for a real-estate consultancy in Utah. Revvy runs on Django, React, Celery, Redis, AWS & Docker and was built in ~16 weeks with a team of 3.

• We built HypeMail.io, an AI-powered cold emailing SaaS built with Python - Flask, React, Celery, Redis, Docker, and AWS in ~12 weeks with a team of 5.

• We built FIT24TW Platform, a fitness startup based in Taiwan - 2 iOS/Android apps & 3 websites based on NodeJS, Flutter, Webflow & Docker in ~12 weeks per entity with a team of 4.

Send me a DM to brainstorm your AI strategy! 🛠

Founder & CEO

SmartCow

• Lead architectural, database, AI/DL and UI/UX design on various Full-stack Applications, built with Python and JavaScript
• Contribute to engineering efforts from planning and organization to execution and delivery to solve complex engineering problems.
• Manage individual projects priorities, deadlines, and deliverables
• Enforcing and maintaining code quality, and limiting technical debt through code reviews.
• Promote a culture of learning within the company, by mentoring, training colleagues, creating learning paths - modular projects which can be used to learn, teach, sharpen skills and then be integrated into production.

Senior Software Engineer

• Architect, develop and optimize the middleware, UI and storage microservices for edge systems.
• Design, build, test, and deploy software for internal and external use
• Ensure the continuous availability and throttling the downtime of core internal frameworks. 
• Design and implement scalable APIs and web services 
• Build dependable test cases and robust CI pipelines for multiple codebases

Software Engineer

Pseudtech Technologies Pvt.Ltd .

• Head research on the entire software side of several pilot-projects.
• Work with Python's leading web frameworks - Django and Flask with Heroku, AWS - S3, RDS and Google Cloud's App Engine to create software products to drive growth
• Work on Computer Vision and Deep Learning projects using OpenCV, Tensorflow, and Keras.
• Design several embedded Linux products including a (Facial Recognition Doorbell) using the Raspberry Pis and Python
• Work with AWS, Google App Engine, Angular and S3 to bootstrap a simple web application to monitor employee productivity
• Creating Facial Recognition POVs utilizing Microsoft Azure's Cognitive Services
• Contacting vendors and suppliers to acquire the resources needed for projects
• Work with Motor Drivers, Servos and Relays to create IOT devices which integrate seamlessly with the company's internal infrastructure. - IOT SwitchBoard
• Creating numerous software POCs and beta projects to meet the requirements.

• Understanding the workflow and commonly faced business problems
• Maintaining existing web apps and routine maintenance.
• Developing small tools and utilities for the upper management to help them automate office tasks.

Junior Software Engineer

Self-Employed

• Developed a Java and JavaFX Desktop App to manage a database of Fixed Deposits of Customers, added SMS integrations, encryption, and FTP Backups

• Created a corporate website for an investment firm using BootStrap, HTML, CSS, configured DNS, CPanel, and optimized it for SEO

• Created a desktop automation software using AutoIT that automated a BPO job of 3 Shifts of unskilled workers working 24x7, saving the client 33% in expenses and increasing efficiency by 50%

• Developed a Python Application to preprocess data received over the network and display it on the screen using PySide and PyQT.

Helping non-tech businesses build software products in 8-12 weeks | DM me your app ideas | Owner - Ionio |

Hi, I'm Rohan! I run Ionio. We are an AI consulting company specialized in LLMs training & deploying, building AI agents & Generative AI. We publish research on our site. Google "Ionio Research"

Our end-to-end solution covers everything from ideation, development to seamless integration in 6-10 weeks.

We are currently doing exactly this for our clients in the SaaS, eLearning, real-estate, fitness & lead generation space. 

Here's what they have to say :)

“We’ve had the opportunity of working with best full stack software engineering company in the biz.  Ionio makes it happen”.
- Greg Warner - Founder - Revvy 🏢

"Working with Ionio has been a game-changer for my business. The way they can take my vision and turn it into a reality better than I imagined is second to none".
- Thomas Manwaring - Founder - HypeMail 📧

“The Ionio team is just fire. Want something done fast? “Yep Yep”. Want something cool and innovative? “We can do that”. Nothing is beyond their reach....”.
- Brooke Daye - Founder - FIT24 🏋🏽‍♂️

Case Studies 👇🏽

• We built a Revvy, a revenue optimization platform in 4 months with a team of 3 engineers for a real-estate consultant in Utah. Property management companies pay a monthly recurring fee to use it. Saved +7.5 hours/week/client, automated 85% of the service

• We built the entire technical infrastructure for FIT24, a fitness startup based in Taiwan - 2 iOS/Android mobile apps & 3 websites in 5 months with a team of 4. Automated away +25 hours/week at the reception desk, saved +40 hours/week total

• We built HypeMail, an email outreach tool for small digital agencies with our client Thomas Manwaring. Took us 5 months & a team of 3. Agencies now pay a monthly recurring fee to use it. Automated away 7.5 hours/week of sales

Drop me a DM if you'd like to brainstorm your AI strategy. 🤖

Previously, I worked as a Software Engineer at SmartCow, an AI company. Before, that I worked in Python for a startup in Mumbai. Before before that for family friends, building websites & apps in Java. Been at this since I was 15 :)

Rohan Sawant

“Chatbots for ecommerce don't work.”
There I said it…

Since 2023, we have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to build exactly those. 

We’ve built, launched, and analyzed dozens of ecommerce chatbots for small DTC brands, retail giants, and marketplaces. 

After reading through thousands of real customer conversations, one brutal truth keeps surfacing, now in almost-2026.

But before you cancel your chatbot project, let me add the nuance: they can work—but almost never in the way we originally imagined.

The flawed assumption we all made

Back in 2024/25. We thought users would land on a merchant's site and ask the AI, "What's the best running shoe for me?" or "Help me find a gift under $50." 

We assumed they'd treat it like an unbiased shopping assistant.

Here's why that falls apart:
Trust is dead on arrival. Users aren't naive. 

They know a brand's chatbot will only recommend that brand's products. The "unbiased advisor" pitch was never believable.

Quality control is a nightmare. Even if you wanted unbiased advice, how do you verify the bot's answers?

One hallucination about material safety or sizing, and you're facing a PR disaster.

The mobile experience is terrible. 70% of traffic is mobile. 

Nobody wants to type full sentences into a tiny corner widget on their phone. It's clunky, slow, and frustrating.

ChatGPT already won. 
Why would I use your chatbot when I already have the ChatGPT app? 

It knows my style, my budget, my quirks—I talk to it for hours. Your bot doesn't know me and never will.

So where do chatbots actually work?

Here's the pivot: Discovery within a brand.

When a customer is already on your site—because they love your aesthetic or trust your quality—they don't need selling. They need navigating.

Example: "Build me a complete work-from-home outfit using only your new collection." Or, "Show me everything in muted olive green."

This is where conversational AI shines. Not as a shopping advisor, but as a personal catalog curator.

The implementation fix nobody's talking about - 
Stop putting chatbots in the bottom-right corner.

That's not where discovery happens. Discovery happens in the search bar.

We're working on a POC that moves the conversation into search. 

Users type naturally, the AI responds with products inline, and it feels like upgrading search—not adding another layer.

The lesson? Don't fight ChatGPT. Don't try to replicate it. Instead, make your own discovery experience better.

Bottom line: The future isn't a chatbot that talks. It's a search bar that listens.

Agree? Disagree? Have you seen chatbots work differently? Let me know in the comments.

#chatbots #ecommerce #ai

CEO & Founder | AI, LLM & NLP Consulting | Training, Deploying & Scaling GenAI Applications

We predicted this. "Shopping Research" in ChatGPT just launched —an deep research experience that asks clarifying questions, scours the web, and delivers personalized buyer guides in minutes.

We mapped this exact trajectory months ago.

Our white paper predicted how foundation model companies would evolve from assistants to autonomous shopping agents, and why this signals the end of the SaaS dashboard as we know it.

In 24 months, your most engaged customers will be the ones who never log in at all.

The three-layer architecture we outlined—Agent-to-Site → Agent-to-Agent → Broker-Agent-to-Site—is unfolding in real-time. 

OpenAI just made Layer One consumer-facing.

Layer Two (Merchant APIs) and Layer Three (Broker Agents) are next.

For retail & e-commerce SaaS platforms, this isn't a feature update. It's an existential pivot:

• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) becomes table stakes
• GXO (Generative Experience Optimization) decides who wins the transaction
• Your moat isn't UI/UX anymore—it's how easily AI agents can negotiate with your backend

We've spent 5 years building agent-ready architectures for 40+ platforms. The 2-year window we predicted is now a 2-year deadline.

Is your platform is architected to survive this & the dozen other upcoming launches shaping how we shop?

Like + comment anything on this post and I'll DM you our full strategic briefing. Drop me a DM if you want to discuss what this means for your roadmap.

ChatGPT just launched Shopping Research. HONESTLY most brands are sleeping on what this actually means...😪

Spent the last 72 hours in calls with our advisory board and retail partners, and the consensus is clear: 

It is a fundamental shift in the interface of commerce.

We are moving away from "Search, Scroll, Filter". 

Eventually, buying will simply be: "Ask, Confirm, Done"

For brands, this introduces a terrifying new reality.

EVEN if you PAY for the ad and get the click typical CPC atm, the user can now pause, tab over to ChatGPT, and ask: "Is this brand actually GOOD?"

If it says "Reviews suggest the battery life is poor," you just paid for the click but lost the sale.

How do you protect your brand?

Here is the tactical focus you need right now depending on your size:

🟠 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 ($1𝐌 - $10𝐌)

- Relax, you don't need to hire an AI expert or burn cash fine-tuning models. 

- The AI agents are looking for "signal." Your best bet is focusing entirely on getting genuine, high-quality reviews and social proof.

- If your product is great and real humans are talking about it, the AI will find you.

🔵𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐝-𝐬𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 ($10𝐌 - $150𝐌)

- You need to focus on your data plumbing. You are too big to manage things manually. 

- If your product specs and catalogs are messy or unstructured, you are invisible to the model. 

- Push your vendors to ensure your data feeds are clean and machine-readable.

🟢 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 ($100𝐌+)

- Your biggest enemy right now is internal silos. You can't buy a plugin to solve this. 

- You need to get your Product, Marketing, and Tech leaders in the same room immediately. 

- You need a dedicated team simulating exactly how these models view your brand versus your competitors and building the tools to fix it.

The gatekeeper is changing. Make sure you aren't left outside.

If you’re trying to figure out what this roadmap looks like for your brand, or if you are a retail SaaS company wondering how to navigate this, 

DROP ME A MESSAGE.

"If ChatGPT can answer product questions better than your site can, why would anyone visit your site first?"

ChatGPT Shopping dropped last week. (Something we predicted, 1st white paper)

Now, we are writing our 2nd predictions essay, "The Aftermath" - where the industry goes next and the ripple effects on marketplaces, brands, and the SaaS companies that serve them.

Fellow men & women leaders in retail & ecom.  Have you considered the 

-  EFFECT of the impending shopping assistants roll-out?

- IMPLICATION of chatgpt ads for your business?

- CUSTOMER STRATEGY for what will be the most demanding, inquisitive buyers of the melliania -  customers who now expect instant, perfect answers just like they get from their "AI".

Drop me a message, comment, start a conversation what do you think, where is the space going? First impressions?

"Where do you see this space going in the next 12 months?"

I will be picking the best insights to feature in the final essay.

it has burnt a hole in my retinas yes.

taplio

The Battle

Joshua Oakes

Rohan Sawant

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJoshua Oakes's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRohan Sawant's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Joshua Oakes

Rohan Sawant

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Joshua Oakes's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRohan Sawant's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJoshua Oakes's LinkedIn Performance