Storie 0:17

Welcome back to Market it With Atma, where we share the tips, tools and strategies to help your business be successful. Tools and strategies to help your business be successful. I'm your host Story and today we have on the show CEO of PolicySage, mr Xavier Egan. Welcome, xavier.

Xavier 0:32

Well, thank you for having me.

Storie 0:33

Thank you for coming. This podcast I'm excited about because I am not familiar with what you do, and that's rare.

Xavier 0:40

Well, there we go. I'm here to illuminate.

Storie 0:43

Thank you. So first tell me, I guess not so much about PolicySage, but what navigated you in the direction to create PolicySage, and then you can tell me more about it if you like.

Xavier 0:54

Sure, so this was really something that came from the community. We have an office here in Arlington, Texas, the dream city right Of course so. I participate locally in the community in a lot of different ways, and we were talking one day about Bill Watch and I never heard about that right, I was just making a light joke, you know? Hey, I'm leading the committee. That sounds like a boring channel, right?

Storie 1:23

To be honest, right Transparency is the best policy.

Xavier 1:26

That's what I thought.

Storie 1:27

So we kind of laughed about it.

Xavier 1:28

They're like no, it's not a TV channel, it's what we do to try to advocate for our organization Interesting, and that's what I said.

Storie 1:36

Tell me more, right.

Xavier 1:38

So, okay, they say, well, we go to the legislator site and we search for different key words that are important to us, you know, women, men, children, substance, education, whatever it is, and we use their system to pull back whatever legislative policy might be important to us. Right?

Storie 1:58

Within those key words. Within those key words, I gotcha Right OK.

Xavier 2:01

And then what next? I say? They say, well, we pull it down, take the PDF, we attach it to Excel file, we try to read it best we can and try to translate what we think it means to decide if we should advocate or not.

Storie 2:16

Ooh. And I said oh, that leaves a lot of room for error.

Xavier 2:19

it seems like yes yes, and not to say people aren't the best and worst thing about life, but, geez, they are the best and worst thing.

Storie 2:27

No one's perfect right, that's right.

Xavier 2:29

So there's a lot of subjectivity there.

Storie 2:31

Interpretation.

Xavier 2:33

Interpretation, lost art of language, all sorts of things that can happen.

Storie 2:37

And.

Xavier 2:38

I'm like, ok, well, naturally you got the same things that I thought and then I said, well, let's just talk about maybe this isn't a big deal. What's the volume that you usually deal in? Right and they're like well, how many I'm trying to track myself. I'm like yeah. In that Excel file. What are you looking at? Maybe a couple hundred. I'm like ugh.

Storie 2:58

Wow, a couple hundred. What?

The Overwhelming Challenge of Policy Tracking

Xavier 3:00

exactly A couple hundred bills and policies that are deployed in that state legislator. Oh, my goodness that they're trying to figure out and I said, oh well, that already seemed like a lot. Well, how many are you totally facing?

Storie 3:13

Right.

Xavier 3:13

And that's when the wow moment happened. They said well, you know, in Texas alone maybe in a natural legislator we're seeing about 8,000 proposed bills. I said oh, oh my. And I looked and researched myself and across the country there's about 150,000 to 200,000 proposed bills and laws in every legislative session.

Storie 3:40

Oh, my goodness, how do you have the time or capacity to go through each and every one accurately?

Xavier 3:46

Exactly, and if you really wanted to know if you were looking out for your house or your business or any type of interest, right, you would imagine you got to read it all.

Storie 3:58

I would. I mean, I'm a term and conditions girl. I will read every line, right.

Xavier 4:02

Right now in just Texasxas and our legislators getting the closeout phase right. There's over 10 000 policies they proposed this session and about 47 000 pages. Last time I checked well the average reading pace and they say we aren't average anymore. Uh, it would take them about 12, 13 weeks just to consume that information.

Storie 4:28

Not even absorb it, just to read it.

Xavier 4:30

That's it, not to comprehend it.

Storie 4:31

Right, right, that's just consuming.

Xavier 4:33

I read it and we all know, the first time you read something, you never get everything that you're looking for.

Storie 4:38

Absolutely not.

Xavier 4:38

You've got to go back and pen it again and again and put your finger on it. That day I probably didn't absorb anything, right you were hungry or hangry, you might not have caught anything that is very real, very true imagine it's 47 000 pages. Well, let's talk even crazier across the states, all states and the federal level. That 150 to 200 000000 converts into 100 million pages.

Storie 5:05

No, you'd have to have a team of people just reading constantly. But then therein lies another problem.

Xavier 5:11

That's right. You'd open it to interpretation again. Well, and not just that, it turns out, there's even more problems to really solve.

Storie 5:17

Well, I mean, we're talking about legislation here.

Xavier 5:19

Now you get the point here, and this was all illuminating for me. It wasn't that this was my background as much as just being a normal citizen trying to understand how can I help myself or help others. And the short windows is your next issue. So in the traditional legislature, say in Texas, it's maybe 140, 160 days, not a full year. You don't even have a full year to understand what's happening. That's not even half a year. Okay, in the shortest legislator it might be two weeks session.

Xavier 5:54

in their shortest special session they can provide in a different state right and then, maybe two to three months right is a more average small session that they have to get every bill, every law in every sector covered for your state. And then you imagine at the federal level they're doing this across all 50 states, affecting everybody, not just in our local area so you're a problem solver. You saw a problem now you see where I'm at and you're trying to solve it. I just saw a problem. Now you see where I'm at and you're trying to solve it. I just solve a problem.

Storie 6:25

Walking around here, solving everybody's problem.

Xavier 6:27

That's it. I was just walking down the street one day and I stumbled into a pothole.

Storie 6:31

But you know what? That's life, right? Either you have a passion and you focus on it or you move on with the rest and you're actually trying to make some change here, right? That's right, okay. So how did Policy Sage and the name actually come to life?

Xavier 6:46

Yes. So the idea of you know, and legislation is a thick and long term right, it's already complex in nature so we didn't want to use that word. Policy kind of covers a more broad variety, and the reason that was important to us is because you might think of policy in a variety of ways. You know, inside of an organization is one way, but then when you think about external policy, it might be code or ordinance right, or it could be county level.

Xavier 7:14

City level, it could be state right, or it could be county level. City level, it could be state level, it could be federal level. Yes, so many different ways. It could be your local school board that you're concerned about it could be your university and the policies in the system that they're in. Yes, and all of that's public information, but sometimes the way that is written is a little bit dense to decipher who has the the time to sit there and just drill through all that?

Storie 7:37

We all have full-time jobs, right, that's right.

Xavier 7:40

And usually it's not that it's a part-time problem, it's just that it's only a piece of the huge puzzle that we're all dealing with.

Storie 7:47

Right.

Xavier 7:48

And if you're a nonprofit and trying to advocate for some little kid out there, whatever it is the homeless or whatever the happenstance, is really legislation and the rule of law is kind of what brings us all together. So, as those things change, it affects us all, sometimes less than others Of course. But it depends on where you sit.

How AI Transforms Legislative Research

Storie 8:12

Absolutely so. You've brought together a very antiquated system together with AI.

Xavier 8:19

That's right.

Storie 8:20

And how did you begin this transformation? Where was your starting point of helping to solve this huge issue?

Xavier 8:29

So when they told me that original story of just how manual the process was, that they were working, and I started thinking about all the gaps that we talked about and then even others Like. Well, how do you know that the key word is even getting to the search that you're looking for?

Storie 8:48

Right. Right, because there's no, you know, general help desk that tells you exactly what to do Unless you read through it word for word yes, so how do?

Xavier 8:55

you know. So we needed to make it more robust, easier to translate, faster to the answers, and what we were competing with was this manual labor that we just didn't even know existed and was overwhelmed.

Storie 9:09

Right.

Xavier 9:10

So when it came to that, we researched more. It turns out the savviest person in policy to do developed research is like a congressional research analyst, because they deal with US legislation, which is way more depth sometimes right.

Storie 9:26

Absolutely.

Xavier 9:27

If, on average, most legislators put down 100 pages, they might put down 1,000 pages right Just to describe the same efforts. They might put down a thousand pages, right? Just to describe the same efforts, right?

Xavier 9:38

so that guy would take an average of 40 to 60 hours to do the depth of research that it would take to understand ins and outs every level of a policy. So imagine how many people aren't having that person on staff, let alone having that capability of time, because when you remunerate that into just math as a problem solver, as I am 40 to 60 hours means, if you calculate your 2080 of his full-time work, he's only going to be able to do 30 to 50 analysis in an entire year.

Storie 10:09

How is he getting everything else?

Xavier 10:11

He can't so when you compound that with the idea that you got a short window of maybe 140.

Storie 10:18

You don't have a whole year and that's not the only thing they're focusing on.

Xavier 10:22

I'm sure you've got to not just read it. You've got to do something about it next right you got to apply it, you got to advocate for it, against it, so on and so forth. So we just saw uh, an easy spot. Well, today we're, in a way, more technologically advanced space than we were yesterday, even right.

Xavier 10:41

And let alone two years ago or five years ago or 10 years ago. So the idea of AI being so widespread is really trying to figure out. How do we make it valuable, right? How do we make it helpful? How do we humanize it to a way that it creates a multiplicity of force, not necessarily just a reduction of force? Absolutely and in this case, we're thinking that these smart people that were hired were hired because they had strategic minds that were meant to not just analyze, but also apply.

Storie 11:13

Absolutely so. You're helping them analyze so that they can apply more efficiently.

Xavier 11:18

That's it, so we're trying to empower, whatever that use case is for you. So, whether it's in a corporate environment or whether it's in a political environment a legislator, a county civics, you name it the idea is, how do we help you do whatever you're doing better?

Storie 11:33

That leads me to a great question is why is it so important for businesses to respond to legislation faster?

Xavier 11:42

Well, the impacts right and ripple effects. So some of the work that we've done is so in-depth because you just don't know the layers of impact until you do the analysis. So this goes back to consumption, right.

Storie 11:59

First we're going to read something right and say hey, word for word.

Xavier 12:02

We think we read it right. Then we're going to try to decide do we understand? That's where the comprehension comes in right. And that's just the words that are on the paper right. That's the words that are on the paper.

Business Impact of Policy Intelligence

Storie 12:14

Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but I mean it's a whole job in itself.

Xavier 12:18

Yes, so now get to my third level. Third level is analysis. So that's what's the implications of the words that are on the paper? Well, that's not just mentioned in the words on the paper.

Storie 12:29

That's the important part, right, that's the important part.

Xavier 12:32

So does it change other laws or other codes or other effective places that are already impacting me? And that could be the difference of revenue, it could be the difference of cost, it could be the difference of labor, it could be the difference of supply, absolutely the demand that's going to happen so many different areas that it could affect a total economic state. For me, right, Wow. So everybody's going to be impacted by their legislation. That happens. That's why it's so important to be a part of that citizenship.

Storie 13:01

On the local level. We're not just out here voting for presidents, y'all the local is what affects us.

Xavier 13:10

Right, it comes down to your backyard right. When your property taxes hit you, when that sales tax hits you, where all that money goes? Is it affecting your school, Is it not? So on and so forth. And if you don't know, that doesn't mean that it's not going to apply to you.

Storie 13:26

Absolutely. It's still going to hit you. I know I'm feeling the pain from it on the whole home insurance that I'm sure everyone's feeling it as well. So how do you build trust and authority in a field like legislation, intelligence, how do you help people understand the importance and how do you implement it?

Xavier 13:45

So we started with the facts, right. The base source, details. We connect everything back to the legislators themselves, right? So we're pulling the details direct down to make sure that you can always pull it back. Read it for yourself word for word, and you could do this same analysis. It just might take you more than the minutes that it takes us to help you and translate that right.

Xavier 14:09

Absolutely 40 to 60 hours minutes after clicking a button. Well, that's going to change the way that you think. It might change the amount of way policies that you are able to research. It might change the amount of things that you advocate for or against or the things that you're concerned about, because you just had no awareness before, you had no time to take that depth. So we just took that first right right, which is let's use the information that's already there.

Xavier 14:37

And the second part is that we wanted to make sure that we were replicating a strategy that was already sound, it was already historic, it was already out there which is why we went after who already performs best. Who are we all looking to?

Storie 14:54

That's a great question To say who could give us that answer. Yeah, who was it?

Xavier 14:57

It was that Congressional Research Service Analyst right.

Storie 15:00

Wow.

Xavier 15:01

And it was the idea that depth that they can provide and there's lots of different types of analysts that are out there, but the depth that they provided was right next to the length and the depth that a lawyer would provide Right.

Xavier 15:14

But, the lawyer was only focused on the legal aspects Right, whereas the congressional person was looking at all the stakeholders everybody who could be concerned, because they don't know if it's going to be the businessman that comes to the to the office next, or if it's going to be another political office, you know, lower level government, or if it's going to be a nonprofit or NGO or advocacy group. They don't know who's going to have the smoke for them tomorrow.

Storie 15:40

Right, I love that. I love the way you say that. So this is, this is. I'm so glad you put policy in the name of your company versus legislation, because when I see legislation it scares me. Policy is a lot more coming. It's like, okay, how can you help me, right? So how do you market to your demographic? What exactly is your demographic that you're trying to broadcast your brand to?

Community Building and Future Growth

Xavier 16:06

Sure, well really. There's a lot of stakeholders, right From the government and legislator space to the NGOs or the advocacy groups, universities, all the way to the political parties themselves or the legislators themselves right.

Xavier 16:24

Because we all have our own viewpoint and perspective of how the policy is important to us. Now, from a client standpoint, we think that the most impacted clients are probably going to be those Fortune 1000 folks who are dealing in multi-jurisdiction, because it gets complex right when you're talking about 50 states. You're that big big dog out there operating all over the place. That might get to be a huge concern, and probably one of those guys who's spending a lot of their labor dollars towards that research Absolutely.

Xavier 16:55

And then you get into government contractors Like everything's affecting them, right? So everything about their top line revenue is affected, which you can't spend money on salaries or anything if you can't get the revenue in and legislation is hugely impactful, other investors. Well, if you're a private equity or venture capital or really widespread hedge guy, you're investing again in multi-jurisdictions trying to recover all over the place, right? You need to know that those businesses you're backing are seriously in position to create the value that you're looking to return.

Xavier 17:27

Absolutely, and that's going to be important. And then, of course, you've got those advocacy groups right, those lobbyist kind of groups where not everybody can afford all the resources on their own. So that's when they look to those advocacy groups. Let's pool our resources together and instead of being just one realtor, we're the Realtor Association, and instead of being just one realtor, we're the Realtor Association. Now we can afford to have resources that we can share across our whole body, where now we're smarter together. So those guys are all looking to help more constituents, right.

Xavier 17:59

And that's our goal. How do we bridge whatever that use case is that you want? And our goal was to really bring the two words together policy and sage right the wisdom we want you to have, whatever wisdom you need.

Storie 18:16

So we gave you the sandbox and it's really up to you to plan it how you see fit. Absolutely. I love that. The initial start of your focus and mission was to help the community understand and be more involved and then, after you've created this wonderful software program business, at the end of it you're bringing that community together, and so you went full circle with it. That's right and that's a true leader, I would think. Do you have mentors in your life that you looked up to to kind of help navigate your journey? I mean, going from being a part of the corporate world to owning your own business, especially cutting edge, is a huge jump. Did you have leaders that you followed along the way?

Xavier 18:58

Well, yes, actually, there's some great Texans who have venture companies, private equity like Robert Smith, who's done some amazing things and accumulated some superior wealth, and then even locally, we're trying to inspire more growth and more knowledge and more activation here locally, so really using and leaning on all those resources in the network to cultivate something great. They've even got great co-working spaces, like this one, nouveau Desk or or Spark or HEXA Innovation Centers. That are all a part of trying to build and integrate and give more value, even the Richardson IQ and what they're doing at UTD with their Center for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning right Like these days, the knowledge is just moving so fast.

Xavier 20:06

You've really got to be a part of the community and share the wealth of knowledge right? Because we're all just trying to figure out how to create something valuable, right, something useful and something that's going to have longevity, and I think that's what we've created here.

Storie 20:21

And be willing to receive it right. I mean, years ago people were very hesitant about the internet. But if you don't jump on this wagon with everybody else, you're you're left behind, and it's unfortunate but, why not learn and grow? And you're using it in such a good way because with anything, especially technology, it can be used for good or bad, and you're really. I feel like this would help more than anyone the nonprofits. You're optimizing time understanding process for all of them.

Storie 20:51

And that could help them be more successful at the end of the day.

Xavier 20:54

Yeah Well, everybody who naturally has a smaller labor force is obviously going to need to rely on more technology. Right? Because that's really our multiplicity of force, next to credit and debt and the human capital that we have right, absolutely.

Xavier 21:09

So we've got to figure out how to leverage that better, and this is a perfect use case, right when this is something that we all had, an itch that we were trying to scratch. We just didn't know how large it was, you know, until we started diving into the details and some people didn't even know it was an itch that needed to be scratched right.

Storie 21:27

With a lot of government issues, I mean, it feels like everyone's understaffed these days.

Xavier 21:37

And we're trying to all optimize and change things for the better, right Even the government themselves, right.

Storie 21:41

Well, I hope they're trying, because I sure am trying. So what habits or routines help you keep, help, keep you sharp and on the cutting edge of everything?

Xavier 21:49

Continuous learning, right? I'm always out there looking at what other people are up to in regards of not just the competition but even other industries. Right To your point, the way the technology is moving, you just don't know what's going to float your boat, right, I'm sorry to say Absolutely, and sometimes directionally.

Xavier 22:10

you can see something that really is a huge opportunity right and a gap that can be filled, or another partnership that can be made or a synergy that can happen or be orchestrated. Someone mentioned nonprofits recently that they could be a good help, and they also mentioned that sometimes they don't have the adequate funding to support themselves. That same person went as far as said well, you know, what I think could be a great idea is there's foundations that will help emergency funding for nonprofits to fill gaps. To fill gaps and wouldn't this be a great gap to fill with how active the legislator is and how it's changing some of their funding aspects to say, hey, let's go to this foundation to fund getting me technology that'll put me up to speed, to support. And I said, wow, I would happily not only give them a discount but help support, bridge those gaps right.

Storie 23:02

Absolutely Atmo. We have a discovery process. It's a lot like that After we finish our discovery process and doing a deep dive, you can take that and get funding from the bank, saying I need this money for my business, for the marketing aspect, and this is why Right, and so you're doing the same thing. You can do it really with a lot of different businesses. If you show a need, right, then how can they tell you no at the end of the day?

Xavier 23:29

Decision analytics. We want you to make a decisive choice. I love it and we need you to have some facts to do it, and that's really what that discovery process helps out on your side. And in our version we're just trying to do that with how we help you break out legislation.

Storie 23:45

Man. That's so wonderful to hear. So what's on the horizon?

Xavier 23:49

Customers, more and more of them. We've got one of the top 10 counties in the country. That was one of our great customers that we onboarded recently.

Storie 23:59

Wow, congratulations Thank you, thank you.

Xavier 24:02

We're super excited about that and we're seeing that there's a lot of interest in a lot of different industries and sectors. So now we're onboarding a bigger sales staff. You know people who can help be in front of all these folks and translate what we're up to, show them how we can help and intake. Where's the next edge, where's the next corner? How can we improve our roadmap to really be even more efficient to what would help change things right?

Xavier 24:30

Now we know and believe, from the response that we already have, that this is a great start, absolutely. But, that's the beauty of new technology, right? This is just the beginning.

Partnerships and Business Wisdom

Storie 24:41

Constantly be willing to innovate and change. That's a wonderful mindset that you have. Innovate and change that's a wonderful mindset that you have. I ask every guest of mine at the end of the show what is one thing that you would tell another business owner? To your first self, right, your first self that got into this, your first self that learned about this. What's something you wish you knew before now.

Xavier 25:04

Sure, well, I've done a lot of different things in business and they always say you get conflicting information, sometimes right? So once I heard the only ship destined to sink is a partnership. And that was pretty funny, because the reality is true. Wealth isn't gained by independence. Right? There's nobody sitting in a basement by themselves. The people we think of are connected to the World Wide Web.

Xavier 25:31

That's right, so they're really connected to all of us, so it's really about synergy and partnerships. Sometimes people have bad experiences with collecting the wrong partners, but the reality is teamwork is the dream work. You've got to have people who can support what you're up to, who can advocate for you, who can let you know when you're wrong right.

Storie 25:51

Absolutely.

Xavier 25:52

Who can push you in the right direction and who can put some hands-on utility into what you're doing sometimes right, that's awesome. Because having an idea is great, but you've got to get rubber to the road right.

Storie 26:04

I love the way you say that You've you gotta get it to the road, baby. Talking about it's completely different than implementing it. Right we can always hypothesis test.

Xavier 26:11

That's a good start.

Storie 26:12

You know we gotta start hypothesizing right but then we gotta get to the test part and that's, I guess, when you find out if you're a true business owner, right? That's right the implementing part there's where the risk goes wonderful. So if anyone wants to learn more about you, become a part of your team, or is interested in you coming to visit them to help them, how can they reach you?

Xavier 26:31

Absolutely. Check out our website wwwpolicy-sagecom.

Storie 26:38

Awesome, and I will also list that in the information below. Thank you so much for joining us and I cannot wait to see what you do throughout the year.

Xavier 26:46

Excellent, it was delightful. I really appreciate it.

Storie 26:48

Thanks, Xavier, and to all of our listeners out there. If you would like to make a change or need help making a change, please reach out to Xavier. I'm your host, Dori, and we'll see you next time.