Sidecar Sync

Boosting Public Speaking Skills with AI: Varun Puri and Yoodli | 62

• Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias • Episode 62

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In this special interview, Mallory chats with Varun Puri, co-founder of Yoodli, an AI-powered communication coach revolutionizing how people prepare for speeches, interviews, and conversations. Varun shares Yoodli’s journey, from its inspiration as a "smart mirror" for speech to its adoption by global organizations like Google and Toastmasters. Discover how associations, professionals, and even doctors are using Yoodli to enhance communication skills, and get insights into why keeping the "human in the loop" is key for authentic speaking. Varun’s candid anecdotes, including the quirky origin of Yoodli’s name, make this an episode you won’t forget.

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🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Yoodli ➡ https://yoodli.ai

Chapters:
00:00 - Welcome to Sidecar Sync
02:05 - Introducing Yoodli: The AI Speech Coach
03:29 - Varun Puri’s Journey and Vision for Yoodli
05:26 - Yoodli’s Process: From Filler Words to Confidence
08:54 - Real-Life Applications for Yoodli Users
12:26 - Feedback on Both Content and Delivery
16:11 - Human and AI Collaboration in Speaking
19:49 - Use Cases: From Google to Toastmasters
23:45 - The Future of Yoodli: A Personal Communication Ally
26:15 - Final Thoughts and Call to Action

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More about Your Hosts:

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress 🔗 https://BlueCypress.io, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

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Mallory Mejias is the Manager at Sidecar, and she's passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space.

📣 Follow Mallory on Linkedin:
https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

Speaker 1:

I think what I'm learning about speaking is it's like any other sport. You need to train the muscle. You can get better after a couple practice sessions, but then, if you don't work on it, you'll either get a new take or you move back into your old habits.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Sidecar Sync, your weekly dose of innovation. If you're looking for the latest news, insights and developments in the association world, especially those driven by artificial intelligence you're in the association world, especially those driven by artificial intelligence you're in the right place. We cut through the noise to bring you the most relevant updates, with a keen focus on how AI and other emerging technologies are shaping the future. No fluff, just facts and informed discussions. I'm Amit Nagarajan, chairman of Blue Cypress, and I'm your host.

Speaker 3:

Hello and welcome back to today's episode of the Sidecar Sync Podcast. My name is Mallory Mejiaz and I'm one of your hosts, along with Amit Nagarajan. Today, we're excited to bring you a special interview edition episode of the Sidecar Sync Podcast, where we interview Varun Puri, who is the co-founder of Uli, an AI communication coach. Before we kick off today's episode, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor.

Speaker 4:

Introducing the newly revamped AI Learning Hub, your comprehensive library of self-paced courses designed specifically for association professionals. We've just updated all our content with fresh material covering everything from AI prompting and marketing to events, education, data strategy, ai agents and more. Through the Learning Hub, you can earn your Association AI Professional Certification, recognizing your expertise in applying AI specifically to association challenges and operations. Association challenges and operations. Connect with AI experts during weekly office hours and join a growing community of association professionals who are transforming their organizations through AI. Sign up as an individual or get unlimited access for your entire team at one flat rate. Start your AI journey today at learnsidecarglobalcom. Today at learnsidecarglobalcom.

Speaker 3:

So what exactly is Udly? It's essentially grammarly for speech. Udly provides private and judgment-free feedback to help you ace your next speech, sales pitch or interview. It's being used by hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations like Google Toastmasters, dale Carnegie, among others. Yudley has raised over $7 million in funding and has been featured across media outlets like the Wall Street Journal. Before Yudley, varun ran special projects for Sergey Brin, one of Google's founders.

Speaker 3:

Varun is a TEDx speaker, part of Forbes 30 Under 30, voted the best young entrepreneur in the Pacific Northwest and gave the commencement speech at Claremont McKenna College, his alma mater. So today we have a really good episode lined up for you with Varun. We're, of course, going to be talking about the Udly platform and everything it entails. We'll chat about different use cases, both at the individual level and at the association level. I will share some of my own thoughts from using Yudli myself and some perhaps unfortunate patterns I noticed about my speaking using Yudli and perhaps counterintuitive. We're going to discuss the idea of how communication and speaking is so innately human in many ways and how Varun thinks keeping the human in the loop is essential, even when using a platform he co-founded like Udly. So please, please, enjoy today's episode, varun.

Speaker 3:

Welcome to the Sidecar Sync podcast. We are so excited to have you on this episode. Amit and I connected with you through Neil Hoyne, chief Strategist at Google, who we've had on the podcast before and who was a speaker at our annual event, digital Now, and we are so excited to have you on this podcast. Before we dive into everything that you're working on at Udly, I wanted to give you the opportunity to tell our audience a little bit about you and your background.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, it's such an honor to be here. Neil is awesome. He is an inspiration and a great mentor and it was great connecting with you all. My quick story I'm Varun. I grew up in India. I came to the US for college. My dream, behind Yudli, is to help people around the world, especially in India. Speak with confidence. So think of Yudli as to help people around the world, especially in India. Speak with confidence. So think of Yudli as Grammarly for speech. We're in the early days of our journey, but chugging along.

Speaker 3:

Awesome, awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And when did you found Yudli? How old is the company?

Speaker 1:

It's been two and a half years now, which is nuts to think, because sometimes it feels like it was yesterday. Other days it feels like we've been doing this for 20 years.

Speaker 3:

You know, I feel that I feel that a lot with workflows when things are really busy, but then you look back and you think, how has it only been a few years? I've definitely been in that boat. On the Udly website I found a stat that kind of blew my mind that I'm sure you know, because it's on your website that one in three people rank public speaking as their biggest fear, higher than the fear of death. So obviously you created a solution for that, being an AI coach for public speaking. But I want to get into more of the nitty gritty. What does Udly actually do for our listeners who've never experimented with it, never heard of it? What does the process look like for using it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's super simple. I mean, we all struggled before a difficult conversation, a big speech, maybe even a conversation in front of a few colleagues. It could be an interview, a salary raise, that best man speech and we all know 15, 20 people who are struggling with this problem right now. It is so, so, palpable, and our alternative today is to practice in front of a camera or a mirror or a stopwatch. Yudli is an AI-powered speech coach. Think of Yudli as your smart mirror that gives you private, real-time and judgment-free feedback.

Speaker 1:

Now, varun, your intro didn't have the juice in it or have a call to action at the end, or you had too many filler words. Here. You're rambling too much when you had your joke about your previous job as an example. The insight that we have, or we think we have, is we aren't solving things with technology or anything. We're solving for deep rooted human insecurity. I hate feeling judged and I'm scared of what people might think of me. At the core, the best way to improve is to record yourself and watch yourself and cringe. You'd leave just a safe environment to do that.

Speaker 3:

I love that. Watch yourself and cringe. I think that is so true to the human experience. And I love what you said about the best man speech, for example, or the difficult salary conversation that you have to have, because I'm sure a lot of listeners are hearing this and thinking public speaking they think a speaker in front of a big audience, hundreds of people, conferences they may not be thinking that Yudley could be useful to them as kind of an individual in their personal lives and their professional lives. So I think that's really insightful.

Speaker 1:

I think also in that vein, people often think of public speaking as this thing that Steve Jobs does at TED. Yudli is not just a public speaking coach. Yudli is a communication skills coach. Yudli will simulate your listeners persona, whether your listener is one person, the interviewer who's grilling you, whether it's a five person investment committee, or whether it's 100 people in the audience. We struggle with speaking. Yudli can help you, or is trying to help you, with as many forms of speaking as possible trying to help you with as many forms of speaking as possible.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, I got to dabble with you a little bit in preparation for this call, so I'll talk to you a little bit about my experience. So I did the sales role play conversation and I of course selected the persona that was the most blunt and the most rude and it was a really good exercise for me. It kind of caught me off guard. You immediately get on the call with the persona and they say who are you? I didn't schedule this call and that kind of took me aback, so I had to take a minute and kind of really think through how I would react in that actual situation. But for being a simulation it did feel pretty realistic. So I will say I was impressed with that.

Speaker 1:

No, thank you. I mean, look, the speed at which AI is evolving is scary. There are times I demo the product Sometimes I'll give it a personality to be a douchey manager and I'm trying to convince this manager to give me a salary raise and I'm like, oh my God, you literally grilled me and had my heart pounding the way a manager would. And I look at my statistics and my feedback I'm like, wow, I have a long way to go and I'll practice four or five times. Or I use Udly while prepping for podcasts very often. Or folks often use us to practice before a media appearance or a panel discussion.

Speaker 3:

So I was going to ask you use Udly. Does your whole team use Udly as well?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's also actually really unfair because, since we are the Yudli team, people expect us to speak with a lot of confidence and charisma and be spot on, and that's just not true. I speak infinitely faster than anyone. I know I ramble all the time and I keep getting penalized, but I'm getting better.

Speaker 3:

You're getting better with Yudli and, hey, it's gotten you this far, so I would say that I think it's working out well for you. I am curious what is the story behind the name of the company?

Speaker 1:

It's a good one. I get this often. I'll give you both versions.

Speaker 1:

So I'll give you the cleaned up version that I tell people. If we're in an audience where I shouldn't be talking about the true story, then I'll give you the true story. So the journalist version is look, yodlee is a play on yodel, which is a voice exercise. It's a song in sound of music. The search engine optimization was easy. The trademark piece was easy. It has two O's and an L, so it sounds like Google, hulu, like you know those cool Silicon Valley companies, which is why we ran with it.

Speaker 1:

The honest answer is I was a freshman in college. I was looking for my roommate. I was really drunk. I was like Tyler, where are you? You do who, you do who. And then a couple more fireball shots you do who became Yudli. And then it just became our little chant in our friend group and I promised myself if I start a company one day, I want my friends to be able to read about it and say you are kidding me. Like grown adults are using the word yoodly. So we aren't quite there yet. But when you know we've had like press releases or my friends hear about us in the news like I always get a texting, I cannot believe people are taking yoodly seriously.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm sure you experience a little bit of cognitive dissonance every time you're on one of these podcasts and you hear the interviewer asking you about Udly, which is a drunken term from your freshman year of college. But I'm honored that you shared it with all the Sidecar Sync listeners.

Speaker 1:

I will say I'm excited to be speaking here and hopefully collaborate with a lot of folks who are listening to this podcast.

Speaker 3:

Well, yeah, I wanted to get into kind of the world of associations which is our world here at Sidecar and on the Sidecar Sync podcast. Do you see nonprofits using Udly associations or is it mainly for-profit companies?

Speaker 1:

I mean we have folks across the board. Toastmasters is a really good example. Toastmasters is a speaking organization. They'll use Udly to train their speakers, but we've got the School Nutrition Association and smaller organizations and nonprofits who are using us to prepare for fundraising conversations Essentially, any organization that has people who are speaking and need to practice for their speaking engagement. Think of something like the Rotary Club, as an example, or the American Marketing Association, et cetera. I have talks with versions of these. I can't reveal everyone we are working with or folks who have members who want to upskill themselves and struggle with communication skills. What Udly does is we give you a white-labeled, branded version. What Udly does is we'll give you a white label, branded version of Udly. It's built around your method, your branding. You know you might say hey, we call our people users, not customers. Or remember to always thank the audience and the world of Toastmasters. Start with Madam Toastmasters and call them the um counter, not filler words. Whatever it might be, Udly will take on your persona and coach your members in your voice.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so Yudli is not just critiquing individuals or providing feedback on speaking style, but also on content. Is that correct?

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's super, super important. I think we need to do a better job with our marketing. A lot of people look at us and they're like well, it just gives feedback on the mechanics of your speaking. That's not true. Udly gives you feedback on your content, your structure. So are you speaking in threes? Are you posing? And then the mechanics of your delivery.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, In my own example, I would say, for the most part, right, public speaking is something for me that comes maybe a bit more naturally. I think it's always a journey, right, right, you're never finished or you're never like at your best all the time. But in my feedback from the simulation that I did with yudley oh, I'm scared to share this feedback with everybody, but I started 20 of my sentences with the word. So it was a short run, it was only two minutes or so, oh, but now this whole podcast. I'm thinking, hmm, how many sentences am I starting with? So I didn't know that about myself.

Speaker 1:

It's really interesting. And again, first off, it's unlikely that another person would have the courage to give you that feedback because it's good. But as a speaker, right, that's probably helpful to be like. Am I rambling or am I not pausing between sentences and I'm just jumping from one idea to another? A lot of us do that, mine is, and or basically, he just points that out really quickly.

Speaker 3:

And do you find you've made improvements on those filler words, being more aware of them?

Speaker 1:

Yes, but not just filler words. It's my ability to make eye contact, or my body language and gestures. I think what I'm learning about speaking is it's like any other sport you need to train the muscle. You can get better after a couple of practice sessions, but then, if you don't work on it, you'll either get a new take or you move back into your own old habits.

Speaker 3:

And do you find, since the medium through which people are using Yudli is online, do you find that it's more beneficial for online presentations, for webinar sessions, or do you find that that still translates to in-person speaking events as well?

Speaker 1:

I think definitely the latter. It's people practice for the real session. Yes, there are Zoom presentations and interviews through a bunch of these online recording tools, but I'd say a majority of our users are using Udly as their private coach before the big in-person session, because that's what gets the nerves pounding as well.

Speaker 3:

My mind's kind of grinding over here for association use cases and I think one that's worth mentioning that we discussed with you, amit and I the first time we met you was that associations have annual meetings right, this is a big part of their business, and they bring in a variety of speakers and subject matter experts to speak at those annual meetings. That might have a variety of levels of public speaking skills. So I think it could be incredibly useful maybe for an association to create kind of some content or some structure around how they want those sessions to go. Maybe they want them to be more interactive, maybe they want them all to feed in really well to that overarching annual meeting theme for that year. So I think that is certainly one use case I can think of with Udly in the association space, totally.

Speaker 1:

In fact, that's our bullseye use case. That's what a lot of organizations use us for. You know we've got our annual convention, our mid-year keynote organizations use us for. You know we've got our annual convention, our mid-year keynote, our big one-off gathering, where we've spent thousands of dollars getting speakers, getting the audience, getting the venue. The worst thing that could happen is someone just drones on at the event. How do you make sure they practice? Some organizations even pay for human speech coaches. Usually it's by no means as good as a human coach I want to be the first to acknowledge that but it is a helpful place for you to practice and then maybe build some confidence and then go to the human coach.

Speaker 3:

Ah, I think that's really profound, because I did want to ask you about that human in the loop approach, which is something we're always talking about here at Sidecar. So you do think there's a place for both Yudli and human coaches kind of in that feedback loop 100%.

Speaker 1:

There's always room for human coaches. Speaking is nuanced and spontaneous and authentic and brings about vulnerability that I don't think machines can or should provide feedback on. I think of Yudly as the medical report, if the human coach is a doctor, as TurboTax, if the human coach is the accountant. Udly is your co-pilot. That's here to help you scale. That's here to do the boring, repetitive tasks in your job and save you time. Udly, if used on its own, can get someone from a zero to an eight, but the last eight to a 10 has to happen with a human in the loop, and the way we've built the entire platform is make it really easy to share it with colleagues and friends and coaches and have them give you feedback all through the Udly ecosystem.

Speaker 3:

I really like that. One of the questions I had thought about before meeting with you today was the fact that public speaking to me inherently feels so human. And you think about the kinds of speakers that we gravitate toward or the kinds of speakers that we think are good quote unquote, which is subjective, but they're often speakers with charm, or speakers with stage presence, or speakers that command a room, and all of those things feel inherently human. So I did want to ask you how you've been able, to the best of your ability, to kind of take those human intuition, gut feelings, and put them into an AI.

Speaker 1:

I don't think we have right. Yudli will not give you feedback. When you sounded inauthentic I think that's hard Yudli might say hey, you rambled a bit when you said this and then you contradicted yourself, but the way quantitative as possible, which is Varun, you spoke really fast in these three sections. Here's what our typical user base speaks at. Speaking fast is fine At some point. It shows excitement and energy. But were you aware of it Then? Here's something for you to think about. That's very much the ethos of Udly. We haven't completely cracked this. As AI is getting good, we have to course correct the way we approach it, but at a philosophical level it's very much. Let the humans do the human stuff, let Udly do everything else.

Speaker 3:

Do you see a path where AI gets so good that it can sense inauthenticity? Or again, are you trying to kind of leave that to the humans for the foreseeable future?

Speaker 1:

I don't know, to be honest, I'm by no means the world's best AI engineer. I'm future. I don't know, to be honest, I'm by no means the world's best AI engineer. I'm terrified sometimes when I look at the speed of development. The way we are building our company is. You can help there, but our goal isn't to provide feedback on those elements of speaking.

Speaker 3:

I would love for you to share, if you have any off the top of your head, any particular use cases or case studies, I should say, from individuals, professionals, from companies that you all have worked with, that really stand out to you or that you are particularly, really proud of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it's been exciting for us. This year we landed contracts with many of the world's biggest companies, so Google just used us to train 15,000 sales reps on their new pitches. As an example, getting 15,000 folks to speak about Google's AI strategy would take forever. By the time the 15,000th person is trained, google would have launched 500 new products or instructor-led workshops on scale. They use Udly for that.

Speaker 1:

Corn Ferry, one of the world's largest coaching companies, is using Udly with their Fortune 500 clients to help you practice crucial conversations, interview prep, etc. Who are the other publicly known ones? Obviously Toastmasters, dale Carnegie. Hundreds of thousands of users across the world have found their own applications. I have some folks who come and say look, I had a stutter when I was growing up and I didn't know how to practice and people would make fun of me or my speech language pathologist recommended this to me or a really fun one. We're working with some of the world's largest hospitals and medical schools where they are using Yudli to simulate difficult conversations for doctors or bedside manners. Right, if you're a doctor, you need to practice your communication skills so deeply. You cannot tell someone hey, you're going to die. You got to use gentle language where it's like, hey, you know, let's talk about a plan after this. Or you kind of say, hey, you have cancer, it's on this tumor, whatever it might be, and Udly then takes on the patient persona and helps the doctors practice in this private environment.

Speaker 3:

Wow, that is incredible. See, that's why I wanted to ask you that question, because, again, I'm still stuck in the rut of thinking, conferences, public speakers, big audiences but to think that even medical professionals are getting value out of this, that's incredible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's what gets me really excited. Udly is an AI powered role play simulator and people make it their own for whatever they want. I've heard of folks who use us to practice negotiations with their toddler. The toddler is like I want candy, and here's why. How do you have this conversation where you can't just say no, you're not going to get it, and buzz off? You can't talk to your kid like that. How do you practice just being a good parent?

Speaker 3:

Yep, yep. I wanted to ask you too, because, as I was playing with the tool, I started thinking about using it for foreign language practice. Do you see anyone using it in that way?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in fact that's one of our biggest user groups. Right, it's. Let's say I'm a non-native English speaker. I'm conscious of my accent, I'm an immigrant, I've just landed in the US, I know a little bit of English. Utility is not where I learn English, but it's where I learn to speak conversational English all the time, because you can practice why you should go on a date with me, why I want to order this steak, how expensive is this meal, whatever conversation, and you can literally do like really quick drills.

Speaker 3:

That's awesome. I speak Spanish as a second language, but it's getting so rusty because I never do it, except when I occasionally travel to a Spanish speaking country. And as I was playing with Yudli today, I thought, huh, maybe I should work on my Spanish skills with this. So that's great to know that's how some people are using it. I'm curious, varun, can you share with us what is on the roadmap for Yudli in the next few months? Maybe in the next few years, if you thought ahead that far? Yeah, I mean my dream.

Speaker 1:

Dream with udley has always been udley is my friend, my spouse, um, my mom. That's by my side anytime I'm speaking, right? So when I'm at a board discussion, my co-founder will poke me under the table if I'm just saying something ridiculously stupid on our revenue slide and she'd be like, well, get away from this slide. Or at thanksgiving dinner, like my mom will like pinch me if I've, like uh, said something really dumb. Or you know, we all have that friend in the audience who's like, hey, I can't hear you speak up. Um, my dream with you is this coach that's by your side in private anytime you're speaking, just nudging you but don't shut up, like ask her questions, or hey, like focus on your intro a little bit, or you're cursing way too much, whatever it might be, just to help you through the day-to-day of your life. The same way I use Grammarly anytime I'm writing, I use Udly anytime I'm speaking.

Speaker 3:

Yep, or the person or the entity that says Mallory, you said so. You know 30% of the sentences that you said on this podcast. Maybe I should have you to lead, just like integrated, onto the Zoom meeting in the future and get feedback. Is that something I could?

Speaker 1:

do Absolutely. You can actually do that today itself.

Speaker 3:

Wow, the things I'm learning. So for our association listeners who are curious about getting started, even at the individual level, but if we're talking about the enterprise level as well, like with the annual meeting example that I gave earlier, what are the next steps? How can we create an account with Yoodly and get started?

Speaker 1:

Yep, please go to yoodlyai. That's Y-O-O-D-L-Iai. It's free to start Start using the tool. Ideally, you'll love it and you'll be like, oh my God, I want this for my team, my association. What if I could white label it and can it do this and that? And hopefully, you then reach out to us and we can set you up with the organization plan. Now we can be reached at info at yoodleeai.

Speaker 3:

My goal with Yoodlee, though, is it should be self-serve a really fun consumer product that you use and love and you want to share with folks A hundred percent. And you can like he said, you can share the videos as well of you with the blunt salesperson fumbling that sales call, if you would like to. And Varun, I also want to share with you. When we connected with you just a few months ago, amit and I, something was ringing a bell and I kept thinking I've heard of this product before, like I don't know how, but I went back through my emails and searched and searched and years ago, probably right after you launched, we had considered at our family of companies doing a public speaking kind of initiative, training thing, and I found Yudely and I sent it off to Amit and was like, hey, check this out. We didn't end up going forward with that initiative at all at that time, but I just wanted to share that with you as a little piece of serendipity that we had found you and then forgotten and then we reconnected again.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's exciting to hear that, it's awesome to hear stories of Yudli out in the wild. I think I've been through many, many situations where people have laughed at me or said this is a dumb idea or the product has, you know, not worked. And it's awesome where, a few years later, they're coming back and they're like oh wow, it's changed. And can we chat and can we offer this to our team? So yeah, if you all would like it, like let me know and you're good to go.

Speaker 3:

Oh well, I encourage everybody seriously go try it out. You will be impressed and you might learn some things that you didn't necessarily want to learn about how you speak, but that will improve your communication in the future. Varun, thank you so much for joining us, of course thank you for having me.

Speaker 3:

Thank you all for tuning in to today's episode of the Sidecar Sync podcast. I hope that the next time you have a speaking event coming up that you're a little bit nervous about that, you consider using artificial intelligence to help you prepare for it. We will see you all next week.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for tuning into Sidecar Sync this week. Looking to dive deeper? Download your free copy of our new book Ascend Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations at ascendbookorg. It's packed with insights to power your association's journey with AI. And remember, sidecar is here with more resources, from webinars to boot camps, to help you stay ahead in the association world. We'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, keep learning, keep growing and keep disrupting.