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Starfish CEO Jordan Silverman on Unlocking Profitability with AI

Rectangle image with navy background of Jordan Silverman

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About this episode

#62. In this engaging episode of The meez Podcast, host Josh Sharkey sits down with his friend and accomplished entrepreneur, Jordan Silverman. Josh and Jordan delve into the journey that led Jordan from his role as VP of Customer Success at MarketMan to founding his innovative AI company, Starfish.Jordan's impressive track record of going above and beyond to help others is a central theme in their discussion. Josh recounts how Jordan's willingness to share his expertise and offer support was invaluable during the early days of meez. This generosity foreshadowed Jordan's success, culminating in the launch of Starfish.Starfish, an AI-driven platform, revolutionizes financial management by generating P&Ls with remarkable speed and precision, uncovering opportunities for margin improvement, and simplifying multi-location financial oversight.

Josh and Jordan explore the impact of this technology on the restaurant industry and beyond, highlighting its potential to transform financial processes.In a playful twist, Josh experiments with AI tools like ChatGPT and Meta AI during the conversation, creating some surprisingly impressive slogans and taglines for Starfish. This light-hearted segment underscores Jordan's enthusiasm for AI and its creative possibilities.Join Josh and Jordan for a thought-provoking discussion about entrepreneurship, innovation, and the exciting advancements in AI that are shaping the future. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or a business professional, this episode offers valuable insights and plenty of inspiration.

Where to find Jordan Silverman:

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

Book Recomendations

  • Relentless by Tim Grover
  • The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
  • Living with a Seal by Jesse Etzner

What We Cover

(04:04): Jordan's start with Star TP

(07:28): How Josh and Jordan met

(14:10): What is customer success and how did Jordan start working in that field?

(18:55): Jordan's opinion on what the biggest change has been in the adoption of software for restaurant companies

(21:53): Starfish 101

(32:11): What Starfish is planning for the future

(34:36): Specific things Jordan finds exciting in AI

(40:14): Josh gives ChatGPT prompts to create slogans for Starfish

(43:22): What makes Jordan angry

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey:

You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate.

[00:00:19]

And operate and how they consistently execute at a high level day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a five star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support and as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:46]

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my guest today is a friend of mine named Jordan Silverman, and we've known each other like three, at least three years. Jordan was formerly the VP of customer success for a company called MarketMan. He has now gone on to start his own company called Starfish, which we're going to talk about today.

[00:01:05]

And literally from the day I met this guy, he was sort of over the top helpful and kind and sort of went out of his way to answer questions and he did not have to. This is when I was first starting my company, meez, had no idea what tech was. companies were supposed to be and started asking lots of people and he had been doing this for quite a while and he was just incredibly helpful sent a bunch of information was like willing to hop on calls and I knew right away to be honest with you when I met him like oh yeah this guy's gonna do some really cool things fast forward a few years and that company was acquired and now he started this company called Starfish which is an AI company that's right AI they generate P&Ls really, really quickly and then extrapolate lots of opportunity for you to increase margins or to find inconsistencies or just opportunities to improve from your P&L.

[00:01:58]

It also helps to sort of create P& Ls across multiple locations, which I can tell you is a pain in the butt, especially in the restaurant space. And it's a lot of fun. Today we talk, you know, a bit about Jordan's background and then just dig right into Starfish because I wanted to learn more. He reached out and that was a great opportunity to, just to learn more about the company and his background.

[00:02:17]

So, of course we talk about the company, but at the very end, we had a little bit of fun while he was talking. I was putting some prompts into ChatGPT and I think also into Gemini and maybe Meta AI. I think Meta AI had just launched their new version. I don't remember, but it was a lot of fun. And we found some really, to be honest with you, some pretty incredible slogans and taglines for his company using AI.

[00:02:42]

And anyways, he's a big proponent of like pushing AI. And I think the thing that he's building is pretty incredible. So I think you'll enjoy the conversation and enjoy learning about his company. And as always, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

[00:03:02] Jordan Silverman:

How you been, man? I've been great. How about you?

[00:03:04] Josh Sharkey:

I've been good. I've been good. Really, really busy. Also, you know, I've been looking forward to this conversation only because, you know, we don't get to catch up that often.

[00:03:11] Jordan Silverman:

I know.

[00:03:13] Josh Sharkey:

And you've been helping us a lot. So I am going to pick your brain a little bit more about some things that you can help us with.

[00:03:18] Jordan Silverman:

I love it. I'm, I'm more than happy to. It's like a really unique thing. And I'm sure you're seeing this for like, and I remember this from MarketMan where like, when you're first getting started and I see this now at Starfish, it's like, You have a lot of time, like you talk to a lot of people, and then all of a sudden as you grow your calendar just gets Yeah,

[00:03:38] Josh Sharkey:

I mean, saying no is key once you start growing anyways, welcome to the show.

[00:03:43] Jordan Silverman:

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I've been a, uh, truly I've been a listener for a long time, so it's, uh, exciting to be here.

[00:03:49] Josh Sharkey:

Awesome. I want to talk about your new company and also just want to kind of talk about trajectory of how you got to where you are today, but I was doing a little digging and if it's cool, I want to talk about this toilet paper company because it's pretty.

[00:04:04]

Awesome. Thank you. First of all, star toilet paper. Yes. I'm seeing a theme of this word star through your, yes, absolutely, through your companies. And by the way, like, I don't know, do you think about like themes of how you think about your companies? I have like a four letter, like I've started three companies, Bark, Make, and meez and I'm like a big four letter word type person, but it sounds like star is kind of a through line for you.

[00:04:29] Jordan Silverman:

The answer is yes. Now it is. Yes. But originally it was like, that was not an intended purpose when I, I have this like very clear memory of I was actually on birthright when I was working on when like the first idea of star toilet paper is really in my head. And I was reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

[00:04:47] Jordan Silverman:

And he was talking about how you need something that is really clearly recognizable from a branding standpoint. And like his example is like the McDonald's arches. What is super interesting was I was reading this and I was working on a start toilet paper and it was like, all right, like we did ads on toilet paper and I wanted something on the bottom that was like really clear that people would know us by and thought of a star.

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