Steve Taplin Podcast Transcript
Steve Taplin joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive today’s guest is Steve Taplin. Steve Taplin is the bold and visionary CEO of Sonatafy technology, a leading force in AI powered nearshore software development. With over two decades of experience, Steve has founded and scaled over 30 companies, establishing himself as a serial entrepreneur and industry disruptor.
Under his leadership, Sonatafy bridges the gap between U.S. based tech needs and cost effective Latin American teams, driving seamless collaboration and unmatched productivity. Steve is a thought leader, regularly contributing to Forbes and Entrepreneur, where he shares deep insights on AI, digital transformation, and leadership.
His relentless focus on innovation helps CTOs and executives solve complex challenges through cutting edge software and AI solutions. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Steve is passionate about leveraging technology to create sustainable growth for businesses, all while ensuring flexibility and scalability. His expertise makes him a trusted advisor to companies seeking to navigate the evolving tech landscape.
Well, good afternoon, Steve. Welcome to the show!
Steve Taplin: Brian, thanks for having me. I appreciate it!
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I love doing this and I love to talk to people all around the world in this podcast. I know today you’re hailing out of that Pacific area time zone, probably Scottsdale.
And I am here in Kansas City, not a big deal, right? Couple hours. We’re good to go. Let’s jump into your first question. If you don’t mind. Steve, you’ve described Sonatafy as a bridge for U. S. tech companies to access top tier Latin American talent. What is Sonatafy? Could you share your vision for Sonatafy technology and how you see nearshore software development transforming the tech industry?
Steve Taplin: Be happy to, Brian. I appreciate the question. Since the early 90s, you’ve had the technology industry outsourcing certain functions like software development or other things to offshore locations like India, Eastern Europe, Asia. And that works really good for a lot of things, but for software engineering, as technology has gotten more complex.
As cloud and mobile environments continue to evolve, there’s been this growing need that you need to have resources on your software engineering team that are working in the same time zone you are, where you can communicate with them directly, you can have instant answers to slack or team messages.
And that real time communication as it relates to software engineering, we’ve seen to be an absolute must for not only saving money but making sure that you’re productive. All of our engineers are fully bilingual. We only have senior talent on our team and they’re natively in US time zones. And so that’s a big part of what we do is help clients save money, but with those same time zone resources.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. There is so much to say about time zones. And I say that because I can relate being in the tech as a developer, but just doing these podcasts is sometimes challenging with the time zone. So, I can only imagine. And I know that there’s some deep, deep experience. Your bench is much deeper as far as development goes, just having them in that time zone as well.
So, I appreciate that. And Steve, with over 30 companies founded, you’ve had a prolific entrepreneurial journey. What key lessons have you learned from scaling businesses and how have those lessons shaped your leadership style at Sonatafy?
Steve Taplin: Well, I wish they could teach this stuff in school or from a book, but when you have the opportunity to found and scale a lot of different companies, you unfortunately learn a lot more from your failures than you do your successes.
And so key things are flexibility, resilience, and staying connected to the mission. I have also found that one of the most important factors to making a company successful is the culture you have in the company. I’ve had the privilege of scaling over 30 companies that you said. I’ve also had some time in big tech in the corporate world.
Leading by intimidation with corporate politics and doesn’t work in the entrepreneurial world, but creating a great environment where culture where you appreciate your team members, where you don’t operate under a closed door or hierarchy type structures goes a long way to having a team that truly cares about what you do, which then is essentially contagious to your clients and to the other people at the company.
And that’s a key part of leadership style that I do with Sonatafy, is making sure we pay people well, we treat them extremely well, we recognize that life’s always going to get in the way, and as long as our team over communicates with us, we’ll always work with them to make sure to have that right work life balance.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And I can tell with longevity, obviously of your team, that you’ve learned some of those life lessons around your companies. And of course, they don’t teach that stuff in school, like you previously mentioned. And I’m glad that you’re embracing that, sharing that. We really appreciate that.
And Steve, you often write about digital transformation for Forbes and entrepreneur magazines. In your view, what are the biggest misconceptions about digital transformation that you encounter among executives? Thank you. Well,
Steve Taplin: You know, one of the biggest things is I see sometimes executives just want to click a box that makes their board happy, like buying a tool like Salesforce, which is a great CRM, but it’s really expensive and typically requires a lot of customizing to get the functionality out of it that clients are looking for.
But it’s when they go to the board and say, what are you doing from a digital transformation? Do you say Salesforce? That’s a name they know, and they feel good about it for that moment. Really true digital transformation involves rethinking workflows, making sure you’re aligning your team’s vision. And that you’re making the process better, which often means that you’re doing custom software specific to your business, and you’re really looking at it from a cultural strategic shift as well as a technological shift as well.
And it’s all about improving that end user experience, whether that’s your employees, your clients, your vendors, or the public.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I’m glad you did break that up. There is some misconceptions around digital transformation. It’s been kind of that buzzword for the last six or seven years, I would say, and it’s overused, but you highlighted some key things, which are more than just the technological changes or innovations.
It’s also about the culture, the people transformation. It’s all bound together. And thank you for highlighting that. And Steve, last question of the evening here with AI evolving rapidly, where do you see the next big breakthrough in AI powered solutions? And how do you plan to integrate it into Sonatafy’s offerings?
Steve Taplin: I always love getting this question, Brian. I’m convinced you were to put 10 technology leaders in a room and ask them, what is AI that you probably get 10 different answers. And AI is certainly the buzzword out there and everybody is focused on making good use of it. And one of the biggest things when we consult companies around AI is it’s often about making sure your data is ready for AI, AI and generative AI are wonderful tools, but it’s only as good as the data that you’re feeding it.
What we often see is most companies. Their data is not ready to truly embrace AI and have it been able to learn and monitor and start more contextual intelligence where it’s understanding the patterns of your company and molding its responses based on those. And AI is going to continue to evolve rapidly in the marketplace as companies are focused on making sure their data is ready for it.
And I see AI able to recognize patterns from previous interactions, adapt its responses accordingly, and that it’s truly going to be a big aid in things or functions that involve customer service. or a lot of activities relating to technical assistance that people are looking for. It’s learning fast and it is a great tool to help companies really improve their customer service.
Brian Thomas: For sure. And we’re seeing that now is people that were diving in quickly and finding out, gosh, I didn’t have a strategy. I do. And is thinking I can just turn on AI and everything’s going to be magically fixed. But we are seeing some big wins in the customer support area. In fact, I’m working with a project right now where we’re implementing basically a live bought conversational AI in a call center.
And it’s phenomenal. So, that’s the type of stuff that we can focus on and then get our staff working on more critical and important items. So, appreciate your insights on that. And Steve, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Steve Taplin: Thanks, Brian. I appreciate it.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Steve Taplin Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
