Dave: Hey everyone, Dave here with another episode of the Philly Tech Connect podcast. I’m speaking with Akinyemi Bajulaiye, a Nigerian American entrepreneur with a multidisciplinary background that spans over a decade across the media, real estate, life science, and technology sectors. He has a degree in biology from the University of Pennsylvania and contributed to the launching of the Pennovation Center, a 58,000-foot business incubator and laboratory in 2016. Currently, he’s building Pentridge Media, an AI-powered automation and digital solutions agency with the mission to help SMEs and creators thrive in the modern landscape. Aki, how are you doing?
Akinyemi: I’m doing pretty good, thanks for having me, Dave.
Dave: Yeah, my pleasure! Tell me a little bit about your background—Nigerian American entrepreneur, multidiscipline—how do you cover all these different topics?
Akinyemi: For sure, so my name is Aki. Appreciate you having me on your show. Nigerian-American, so born and raised here in the states, my family is from Nigeria. I was born and raised in New York and then came to Philadelphia for school. Not sure who else is Nigerian tuning into the show currently, but if you know anything about Nigerian culture, you’re kind of encouraged to go in one of three directions in life: become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. I was great in the sciences growing up, and that was what I pursued. I studied biology in college and after graduating, I worked in science research. I worked for a cardiologist and got really into the startup space through this class that I took while I was getting tuition benefits from working at this laboratory. I didn’t really know much about startups and entrepreneurship, and much all El to be honest, but I kind of caught the startup bug. Interestingly enough, this is back in 2014, 2015, I actually left my job at a hospital at the time and completely pivoted my career. I went to start a venture called Share Anonymous, which was a mental health platform for college students. At the time there was a real issue with mental health on college campuses, in fact, there had been like 10 or 11 suicides within three years, two of the people I actually knew personally on the track team, so it was a whole thing. I worked on that fulltime for a year, went through a lot during that year as well, and then ultimately actually began seeking work opportunities again. I went back to the day job, and that was where I landed at the Pennovation Center. They were just opening up at the time, and it basically facilitated the pivot of my career because now it’s kind of like in this more like operations, entrepreneurial space like it was basically a co-working space, startup incubator. I learned a lot during that time, I was a laboratory manager, so interestingly was still able to use my background. Continued working on Share Anonymous for two years while I was there before actually putting that to rest and then got into some other things which I’m happy to get into. Got into real estate during that time, I was a real estate agent, licensed in PA for seven years. Also got into technology too around that time, mentioned like, I guess before we got on here, I’m super into trading and crypto and a bunch of stuff, but over the last four or five years, I’ve been in the space of emerging technologies, and that’s kind of where the automation agency which is what I’m currently focused on now kind of comes into play. Very multidisciplinary, but background in sciences, kind of a more recent interest in technologies.
Dave: Cool, yeah, no, that is a lot of different areas you’ve lived through. You hadn’t mentioned yet Pentridge Manor, which if I understood it correctly, feels a little bit like a co-working space. You had mentioned it’s where creators and artists and entrepreneurs can come and work and share ideas. Is that at all related to your experience in the Pennovation Center and the work you were doing there, and that being kind of this business incubator and also a place where ideas and energies come and collide?
Akinyemi: I think there’s a part of me that gravitates towards that kind of environment of building community and bringing people together. But really, Pentridge Manor was actually started as an Airbnb. I bought a property and a friend of mine basically suggested I look into Airbnb. I was originally just going to be like a rental property, and so I put it on Airbnb, learned about PE space which I hadn’t heard of before, basically put it on peer space and had it on Airbnb and then I would have it on PE space for sometimes. But I noticed that it was attracting cool creatives, and I got different kinds of people when I had it on peer space. We had some pretty cool artists come through to shoot music videos, people started shooting documentaries there, podcasts and things like that. Going into 2023, I got it in the end of 2021, and I decided to make it solely a content house. That’s currently what it is. But it houses different kinds of people, and that’s where it started. But then now what I’m looking to do is start building a community around it. We have a directory that we’re working on that will help facilitate people who are just into creative pursuits and like our creative entrepreneurs, and yeah, that’s how Pentridge Manor started. A friend of mine was the one that named the house and then Pentridge Media came from that which was, you know, Pentridge Media was really a way of being able to add further value to people who are coming into the space but also a way of being able to leverage some of the skills I developed over the years into something kind of honestly does more like packageable, and that was the inception of Pentridge Media.
Dave: Very cool, you’re the only other person I think I’ve ever met who has mentioned peer space, which I actually use that app as well for my own house. Once you know we are on there, we will get requests not often, maybe like once or twice a year for things like a music video. We actually had one really recently, someone wanted to film like a Downey commercial in the kitchen. When people are looking for like a residential vibe, you’re sharing your experience with Dave, right?
Akinyemi: Right, yeah, I don’t use it but you know that’s cool. Anyways, it’s a cool share economy-style website, not exactly like Airbnb but similar in some ways. It’s interesting that you decided to make Pentridge Manor a content house as opposed to other traditional options such as short or long-term rental properties or the Airbnb. Was that decision more of like a financial business decision like you felt that there was more upside to do that, or was it more like the vision and you felt like that this opportunity to maybe build a community and that might funnel into Pentridge Media kind of played a role, like how did you go about deciding like oh we’re going to make this a content house?
A big part of what drove that decision was just the experience I was having with Airbnb, and part of it was on me because it was my first time doing Airbnb. Something I realized is having very clear-cut and solid systems in place is key to having a good experience with the platform, and that wasn’t the case. I felt like I was running around like a headless chicken that year, answering calls at like 2:00 in the morning to give washcloths and things like that. But I noticed because it was also on peer space, the experience was just a lot more pleasant. Even just how people would treat your home like typically they leave it, you don’t even really need a cleaner if you have your property on PE space whereas Airbnb, you know, there were some things. So that was largely what drove the decision because I was having a better experience on peer space but then I was also noticing how much I really enjoyed connecting with the people that would come into the space, and it was all different kinds of creators that have been there and that I’ve been able to connect with even outside of the bookings. That’s definitely inspired even just my thinking around where to take it going forward, but that was a lot, honestly, it was largely because I wanted to get it off Airbnb at the time. But I think I would, you know, I tell people I would actually consider Airbnb again in the future but just like the systems are very important.
Dave: Yeah, that sounds like some stories. We were actually thinking about whether we should put our place on Airbnb, sometimes we go away for like a month or more, and it’s always nice to kind of get some tenants. One of the ones we’ve played around with it’s called furnished finders, it’s also for primarily for traveling nurses, and individuals are kind of usually looking for a place for one to six months or so. And just the nature of the clientele, I feel like has been, you know we’ve done it like three times or so, and they’re like working professionals and they’re going to live in the place, and I just, you know, we’ve never, it’s a small number of people, but we haven’t had any issues. They’ve always been really respectful, similar with Pier space also which we’ve done a little bit more, maybe like five or 10 times also always really a nice experience. I just think just the way creators like approach a space, you know, they have just a more professional angle about it. I haven’t done Airbnb, so no stories from that, but it sounds like, you know, maybe it’s a little bit of a different vibe.
Akinyemi: Yeah, no, for sure, especially being in Philadelphia, I’ve just seen some things.
Dave: Yeah, I had a friend who was pretty big in the Airbnb and there was an issue with high school kids like renting his place just to throw parties or something and you kind of have to and then that’s a whole thing. So, we’ll see if we personally end up kind of making that call but it’s interesting to hear about your experience there. So Pentridge Media, where are you guys at in terms of just, you know, how new is this and what are some of the main services you guys provide and why you feel in today’s day and age that this is the right time for this?
Akinyemi: For sure, for sure. So I got started with Pentridge Media really at the end of 2023, beginning of, was it end of 2023? Was it end of 2020, end of 2020, yeah, end of 2020. It’s been about a year and a half now. I think honestly time just kind of starts blending together after a while. It started really as like a content editing service. You know, I have a podcast that I worked on for four years called the Pepper Soup Talk Show and I was the member of our team who would help with editing the shows and you know chopping up clips and things like that. You, I’m sure know very well how time-consuming like podcasting can be and like the editing of it and whatnot. At the time, I came across a tool, you know Opus Clip, an AI tool that I know a lot of people started using for chopping up clips as far as like social media goes, a part of that process. It saved me maybe like 70% of time like it cut down my editing, if I was spending 15 hours a week editing episodes and our episodes would be pretty long form, and so you know it’s spent an hour like listening through it all and then going in finding the clips, you know choosing which ones to post, and so it cut down my time significantly. So what ended up happening was I shifted more from that interest in content editing more to getting deeper into like these AI tools and like how to leverage these AI tools to just improve efficiency in your business. So I think throughout the time I’ve been working on Pentridge Media but especially that first year, I myself was also learning a lot as far as digital marketing, automation and ways of just being able to best thrive in the current environment that we’re living in. There’s so much that’s changing as a result of AI and as things are continuing to get more and more digital and then we know that after the pandemic with remote work and even though a lot of people started kind of going back to work or into the office, it’s definitely like a post-pandemic world that we’re living in, like this is what I say that looks like. And so a lot of those skills that I started picking up and information that I started learning got me very heavily into spaces like lead generation, automation, AI, and so the evolution of what Pentridge Media started as, which was more content editing to what it is now which is really an AI-powered automation agency is, that’s kind of like how that went along. And definitely happy to talk you know more specifics.
Dave: Yeah, no, I mean it sounds like a great space. I feel, you know obviously with AI, I feel like the opportunity for just automation and making processes more efficient has never been greater than it is now. I always find one of the more difficult things, you know with the team that I manage and sometimes myself as well which is just, you don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t always know what the opportunities for efficiency are and you know sometimes individuals have been doing it obviously for potentially months and years in a certain way. And then all a sudden new tools are kind of coming out and you know it’s just it’s not necessarily their job in the traditional sense to be aware of all the different tools that are being created and the ways which you know it may be affecting their workflow. And so that’s where people don’t really even know where like how much more efficient they could kind of make it. Businesses don’t really even have an awareness of what the potential upside is for you know incorporating all this automation into their team. I think you know it’s not necessarily about replacing individuals just trying to make the workflow faster and so you can do more high-level creative strategic stuff. Have you found similar things with you know clients that you’re trying to, you know that you’re talking with where, how do you even kind of present the value of what you’re trying to do I guess how do you kind of package it in a way?
Akinyemi: Yeah, so I’ll say that you know what’s been interesting especially as I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into AI is, you know especially earlier on it felt very hypey, was like a lot of hype around the space and as time has gone on I’d say that a lot of the use cases for businesses particularly small, medium-sized businesses are becoming more practical. But then you’re also able to as have been able to connect with different businesses see where the needs really are and so what I’ve kind of gathered from that is in some cases in a lot of cases especially like if you’re a new business or earlier on is like very actually simple kind of straightforward systems that can be introduced. A system as simple as setting up a CRM you know with Gund.com or Air Table like those kinds of implementations can go a long way in just being able to keep track of the business that you’re doing and creating efficiency in that sort of way although it may not be the sexy kind of thing for a lot of businesses it can like help set you up to be able to then like add in other kinds of tooling and workflows. So if you’re a business that maybe has been is more established or is you know thriving and has you know maybe a lot of business coming in and whatnot then you are looking more at how do you kind of solve some of the bottlenecks that may exist or how do you capture more of the value that is that you’re already sort of attracting and then that’s when you start getting into more like I say the cutting edge or like newer you know automation tools that exist. And then just as we going along I mean I talk to know friends about this all the time just how quickly society feels like it’s shifting at this point. You know right now I know when it comes to let’s say these AI tools like OpenAI has their 12 days of OpenAI right now and you’re seeing these big tech behemoths release different tools and features and infrastructure day in and day out and then you have like other tendential spaces kind of moving along alongside it and I think for a lot of businesses it can be difficult to know how to best even just approach business in the current landscape that we live in and so my goal is probably like you know continue to learn on that and then help to demystify just where the opportunities exist and then how to best you know implement the technologies that are currently here into your own businesses.
Dave: That’s cool man, yeah, I love the space. I love anything that just makes things more efficient and I feel like everybody should be in support of that. It’s interesting you kind of talk about maybe segmenting the business into what like life stage it is, you know early business might kind of yeah maybe need that CRM and just creating that hub for customer relationship and from there you’ve got reporting and engagement and retention and follow-ups and different kinds of things that are connected to that CRM and help kind of grow the business whereas if something’s more established you might be thinking about the deliverables of the service in the bottleneck within that and things. So a lot to definitely to think about. For people that want to learn more about you and Pentridge Media what you guys are up to, how should they do so?
Akinyemi: Yeah, so I’m on social media across social media, Sir Aki NB, Sir Aki NB. I’m heavy on YouTube right now so follow my YouTube channel also Sir Aki NB on YouTube. You can just type in my name too and yeah, PentridgeMedia.com and get happy to connect and yeah, this has been really great and was great nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too, Dave. If I can ask you a question, how have you been thinking about like I know you run a digital marketing agency, how you been thinking about just like this AI kind of the impact it’s currently having and like how are you looking at, how are you looking at it?
Dave: Yeah, I mean for you know running a services-based business as we do at Shortlist and kind of having some of our core services around things like content creation or website development, I feel like a lot of what you make in terms of profit it it comes down to sort of like how low can you get your costs while maintaining quality right because there’s you know I mean look there’s obviously a range in terms of what you can charge for certain things but for most businesses there’s kind of like there’s some price anchoring that goes on right like people have in their head that this is how much a thousand words of content should cost, this is how much like a backlink should cost, this is how much like a website design and dev should cost and like I said while there are ranges there are really maybe high-end premium companies that charge a lot like for you know for the most part you need to really be able to justify why it it cost double or triple etc to do it with you why is your approach or something so much so much better and so if that’s not the case if if it’s sort of like hey you sell a quality service but you’re kind of anchored in that way then it really comes down to the margins and reducing costs right and that’s kind of where you open up open up the profit and so t typically a lot of the services that you know agencies do they tend to be fairly manual um or there’s been quite a bit of manual components at least that that was the case for many years it was always kind of human beings writing content it was human beings sourcing backlinks doing outreach doing research um human beings who are design developing websites and things like that um in now nowadays human beings still play a prominent role but there’s a lot of tools um that I think are are applicable um and so we are just looking for all different ways where we can kind of incorporate them to be able to potentially you know welcome more clients if we had the demand without having to increase headcount um to be able to allow the um the staff on our team to be able to do more higher level strategic creative thinking as opposed to spending the majority of their hours in a day doing manual tasks that you know have to be done but um are not that stimulating um and just kind of making sure that we are aware of any um improvements going on in the industry with like you know certain tools now open up different um data points different um you know just access to different quality um that you know a regular person might not have because they just don’t have um the full like view of of everything kind of going on at once um like a tool can kind of crunch obviously like there’s tons of data points and things like that so so we’re kind of yeah we very much look at tools um in terms of like process efficiency and trying to to lower costs and not increase our headcount we haven’t replaced anybody at work um but we’re we’re you know but I’m not looking to bring on more people I’m looking to kind of like how can we kind of get more out of what we have yeah so I it sounds like that’s kind of consistent with uh your guys’ approach at at Pentridge Media and the way you probably try to introduce it to companies that you know are new to to AI right?
Akinyemi: Yeah, no for sure yeah and you know
Dave: I just just being in digital marketing and you’re like to a degree like we’ll call it digital marketing as well um I just is it’s a nice because you do have to sort of be aware of all the the tools that are coming out um and know how to incorporate them um you know I went to an industry conference like a couple months ago and AI is just like a very like sizable like share of the discussion you know in terms of like the themes the talks and things like that and I don’t know if it’s like that with all industries but definitely in like digital marketing I’m seeing it like everywhere you know.
Akinyemi: Yeah, I mean hearing everything um being called like AI powered or like AI um yes definitely a real buzzword at the moment but I think what’s interesting about it is just that um that it actually is uh making that impact right now so when you hear the conversation around you know AI is a bubble and and so on and so forth like you know that that in you know may be a case in in some ways when you think about valuations and whatnot but at at the same time like when you look at like the utility of what is being done um and what’s being done very quickly then you you know you kind of have to pay attention and um yeah
Dave: For sure man um great talking with you um and appreciate uh your insights into uh the process automation industry everything going on at Pentridge Media and hope to see at some events for PTE.
Akinyemi: Sounds good, I appreciate you, brother.