How To Build Your Perfect Customer Target Persona w/ Ina Yulo Stuve | Amazon Web Services

Ina Yulo Stuve: [00:00:00] The most simple way of describing what a target persona is, is it is that individual or groups of individual who actually have the challenge that your product or service is trying to solve.

Amardeep Parmar: Today we're talking about how to build the right persona for your customers at your startup. And we go through this in real depth about what exactly a persona is, what traits you need to put in there, what mistakes people often make when they're creating their personas, how to target your marketing towards that persona effectively.

Amardeep Parmar: And also want to know when you think you've got different personas as potential target customers, which ones to prioritize and when to start expanding that range as well. We're honored today to have with us Ina Yulo Stuve, who's the head of startup marketing at AWS. And a big part of our role is talking to so many different startups, seeing what they're trying to do and being able to advise them and help them along their journey.

Amardeep Parmar: So it's a massive honor to have her on today. [00:01:00] Let's get on to the show. You've worked with so many different startups and a huge part of that is marketing, right?But I think many people at the beginning, they don't know exactly who they're targeting or what they're trying to do. For people who aren't aware of what a target persona even is, could you just define that for us and what, why it's important?

Ina Yulo Stuve: So I think that the most simple way of describing what a target persona is, is it is that individual or groups of individual who actually have the challenge that your product or service is trying to solve. And that's, that's literally the most simple way for me to put it and it's insanely important because, as you mentioned, I work with different startups in my current role, but I've also a mentor and advisor, different accelerator incubators, and I see all of the mistakes.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Right, which is, which is interesting because they're, they're very similar across, especially early stage startups, which is that a lot of the time you think about the problem that you are solving and the problem that your startup is solving and forgetting if that problem is actually something that a [00:02:00] large enough group of individuals have.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And most importantly, is that something that they will pay for you to solve them. So understanding, first of all, who that group is, or who those individuals are, and then actually going really deep into understanding what do they look like? What do they sound like? Where do they hang out? Um, what is keeping them up at night?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Those are all the things that you need to understand first, so that you can build who this target persona is. And that also, then, um, that is what sort of, uh that's what builds your marketing strategy. So you're able to actually construct a really good marketing strategy based on exactly who your target persona is.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So you're always working backwards from that target persona. 

Amardeep Parmar: I think what's really interesting as well, I think so many founders originally start off with they are the target persona, right? But what's obviously the problem there is there's so many biases involved. Do you find that most of the startups you work with, especially in the early days, Do they think about a target persona or is it something which maybe we take for granted that people listening would have mapped that out?

Ina Yulo Stuve: You're so right. And I think that there's nothing wrong with [00:03:00] realizing that you are the target persona because so many great ideas, um, in the startup space start off like that, right? Where, you know, people are like. This is something that I can't figure out. This is something that's been bothering me.

Ina Yulo Stuve: This is something that's been annoying me for so long. I wish there was a product or service that solved this issue. And that's what again, sparks this great idea. The problem there, is when you realize maybe are there enough of use, right? Are there enough of people like you who actually do find this to be such a big problem that needs solving?

Ina Yulo Stuve: And I think that again, starting off with I had this problem and I figured out a solution and here's a solution. Now, you have to actually go back and test it. Right? So that's the thing that I also always, you know, try to encourage startup founders to do is that sometimes you're there further along, by the way, somewhere in their later stages.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And I get surprised sometimes where then their later stages and they're so consumed by this  product roadmap that they've built their consume with maybe the first few customers who have said, yes, [00:04:00] that's totally what we need that. They expect that the larger cohort think the same. So I always encourage startups at regular, you know, at regular intervals.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Maybe it's a half year. Maybe it's a yearly thing where they need to get their entire team together and actually talk about the target persona. And say, is the target persona still the one who we decided was going to be that person when we first started building our, our, our product or service. And here's another interesting bit.

Ina Yulo Stuve: I do a workshop, which is on marketing essentials for early stage startups. And one of the interactive activities that we do is around brand archetypes where, you know, brand archetypes are commonly used with B2C brands, but B2B brands often think that that's not for them because they're selling into a business.

Ina Yulo Stuve: But what I always say is that even when it's B2B, people buy from people. So who is that person at that company who you are selling to? And then you think about your own company and you assign it a brand archetype. So they could be anything from, you know, we have things like the hero, um, or [00:05:00] the caretaker.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And then there are different values attached to it like you know, um, things like being a master, a mastermind at this particular thing. Um, you know, being a sage. Um, and we do this activity and I always tell the founders, okay, pick one or two brand archetypes that you believe your startup emulates. I have co founders picking two completely different brand archetypes.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So that alone shows, right, that they don't really know who they're targeting because they don't really know who they want to be to that customer. 

Amardeep Parmar: What are the really important things to define in that Persona, right? Because sometimes I think people think they've got a persona that's defined well, but when you look at it from the outside, you're like, that's very vague.

Amardeep Parmar: It covers a few too many people. And I think maybe that's a common problem for many founders is that, like you said, where they think that they can please everybody. But especially at the beginning, you need to really nail that down. So what are some of the things that they should be thinking about to really define a true persona?

Ina Yulo Stuve: I have a really good exercise for this because exactly to your [00:06:00] point. So I talked to some founders and again, we do this persona building exercise and they have something on there. Like, um, my persona is age 25 to 45. And I always say, nope, no good. That is too big of an age range. Right. And then what I say then is I say, okay, you're walking down the street and you bump into your target persona.

Ina Yulo Stuve: How old are they? And suddenly it's 32. Suddenly we have a 32 year old walking down the street. Is it a man or a woman? Because someone will say, oh, it's gender, you know, gender neutral. Is it a man or woman? Suddenly. It's a man. So then, you know, it forces them to say, what is the mud? Because you can't again, you can't appeal to everyone.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And if you try to build a marketing strategy that appeals to everyone is going to go nowhere, you're going to appeal to nobody, right? So it's a case of what does the majority of your target persona actually look like? And then I'll say, what are they wearing? And this is again, super important even for B2B because it humanizes the business that they are selling into.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Makes them, and it allows them to dive deeper into the actual psyche of that buyer [00:07:00] persona, because again, a target persona is pretty much a buyer persona, right? It's the person who will either be buying or influencing, um, their stakeholder decisions to give you money at the end of the day. And so we go into this and then we go even deeper.

Ina Yulo Stuve: What are they wearing? So then someone says, um, uh, white sneakers. Okay, like expensive ones? cheap ones? Actually expensive. They really care about quality. Then, you know, you're, you're kind of hooking this and you're actually encouraging the founder to see more and more of this. And then they realize they have a vision of this person.

Ina Yulo Stuve: They can visualize this person. And then when you think about, okay, the next one is they're walking down the street. What are they thinking about? Because again, one common problem, right? I'm all about what are the common problems I see. Um, one common thing is that people always assumes the founders always assumed my target audience is just dying for my solution.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Okay, whereas, and they will say they're dying for my solution. So let's let's give an example. Right? Let's just say, [00:08:00] let's say security startup for the sake of things, right? But they are dying for, um, a solution that will help their, um, head of security build a compliant and secure tech stack when they're launching internationally.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And then when I say, what is this person thinking about, you know, when they're walking down the street? And actually that target persona, the head of security is actually thinking about, oh, my gosh, I'm the only head of security in this entire startup. And I have to build a team and I don't have, I can't find anybody who matched to hire who actually meets that, you know, the job specs and then that's when you realize you need to actually be getting that person in the door first.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Before going in and making the sale. So then what does that say that might say that? Hey, why don't you create some content about top tips for hiring a security team? Right? So you're hooking that person in via that top of funnel content. And once you've hooked it in there, you build trust in your brand, because then they say,

Ina Yulo Stuve: Oh, these guys know what they're talking about. They clearly [00:09:00] know what makes a good, um, security team, right? What makes a good, let's say, security architect. So then I'm hooked because that's the main thing I'm thinking about. It's not about the whole launching internationally, whatever. It's about actually, how do I build the team that will support that international expansion?

Ina Yulo Stuve: And then as you get, you know, you get them into your database. Maybe it's a case of again, Okay. You know, you give them half of that report, put your email address here to see the rest of it. Then you have them in their database. Then you start nurturing them, and then eventually, as you've nurtured them, if they're engaging with more and more things, that gives you, again, an indication that they are a warmer lead, then you make the sale or try to make the sale 

Amardeep Parmar: It, it comes down to the burning curve problem.

Amardeep Parmar: Right? So it might be a massive problem for you, but then for your persona, is it, is it as big as a deal as you think it is? Because sometimes we have the things that really bug us. I'm thinking bugs, other people like us. And like you said, you've only, you've got to talk to him to work out. Is that what they're thinking about or not?

Amardeep Parmar: Because you don't want to go down the position of raising capital [00:10:00] or getting a team in place before you've checked that problem out right. That do a special persona even care. And that's where you can pivot. You can do all those different things as well. But you mentioned there as well earlier about how

Amardeep Parmar: you have some people you've talked to who've got two completely different personas and there's opposites, right? Maybe there's two opposites that are very specific as well. How would you deal with that? When people are thinking, oh, this same product is going to work in the same way for two different groups or five different groups.

Amardeep Parmar: How, what's the best way to go about that in the early stages?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Usually, when this happens, it's because the 2, especially in the early stages, right? If you have co founders, then these 2 co founders are usually playing completely different roles because again, they're, it's, they're, they're a company of 2 at the end of the day, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: And that's why they have those 2 different, they choose 2 different archetypes because they're thinking about themselves and the challenge they are trying to solve for within the company. So you have maybe again, a CTO, so let's say [00:11:00] technical co founder who sees themselves again as, you know, maybe, um,

Ina Yulo Stuve: again, the sage, right? So like the value to be wisdom and then you see a CEO co founder who is putting themselves in as the caretaker because they see themselves as a service led function. So it's very dependent on what each of their roles are and what they are trying to deliver for the business. So when that does happen, what I say is that you guys just need time to get together and talk.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Right. And understand when it comes to your marketing strategy right now, which value should we be concentrating on right now? And it doesn't have to just be one. There could be two, but they need to be complementary. And that means that when it comes to the content that you're putting out, um, the way that you speak about your company, because that that's, that's marketing, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: If you get your, you're a founder and you get invited on a panel, how you are describing yourself, how you are packaging your solution. That's all marketing. That's all brand building. So you can't have a technical co founder and a, you know, CEO, more business focused founder [00:12:00] on two different panels at the same event, describing what they're doing in two completely different ways.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So again, it's a case of just talking and understanding where, what are we prioritizing right now? Which brand value or archetype should we prioritize for this stage of our business? Once we've earned that trust there and we can, we've tested the market and we do see, yup, that's how they see us. Then we can maybe start to expand because brands can be multifaceted, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Like people, right? Again, it's, it's about humanizing your brand. 

Amardeep Parmar: Hey everyone. I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. The BAE HQ has a podcast, but we're so much more than that. So if you want to find out about all the events we've got going on, all the different ways you can meet each other as well as resources to help you build the business of your dreams.

Amardeep Parmar: Then check out the link in the show notes, sign up to our newsletter, where you get a weekly round up, which we like to call the BAE Letter, that will keep you in the loop. If you want to help us out, the best thing you can possibly do is sign up to our newsletter and share it with your friends. So that's enough for me now.  Let's get back to the show. [00:13:00] 

Amardeep Parmar: It's interesting because to me, me and my co founder have now gone official, right? So I hear his calls and I can see how he's describing the company to, well, the organization to somebody else. And it's interesting the terms he uses might be a bit different to mine. And then I'm thinking my head is like, is that the way I say it?

Amardeep Parmar: And then it's really good to sometimes be in the room as like I said, you're a co founder and hear them on a call just to see how do they actually describe what you're doing and how do they explain things differently? Because for us, for example, we've got the different branches of what we're doing, where some of us, some of it's going to founders, some of it's going to investors, and we're trying to match them up in some ways.

Amardeep Parmar: And how you explain what we're doing to the different groups can be very different. And what I always try to do as well is let the other person who I'm talking to. I let them talk for a bit so I can kind of understand what's the way to speak that's going to appeal to them the best and with the different personas there as well.

Amardeep Parmar: Have you ever seen somebody just get the persona completely wrong and really go [00:14:00] down the route of like, this is what we think our customers are, and then after research to find out, actually, this sort of should be targeting, and this is what, who actually cares about our product. 

Ina Yulo Stuve: I don't think I've seen someone who's gone in it totally wrong, which is a good thing, but I think I've seen it where there are potentially two different personas who they could be targeting, and they've maybe got their priorities mixed up.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So again, I'll give you an idea, right? I talked to one startup recently where they were talking about their, their end customer, right? So who is their main customer? And then they said, but actually the, the, that customer's customer is also important. So that customer's customer is actually at the end of the day, the one who influences the buying decision of the customer a, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: And, and because there's a customer  A kind of says, yes, no, here's the money. But in terms of the earning trust bit, it's actually with that customer's customer. And again, that's what I always say again with B2B, is that you're so focused on your customer as a business, your target persona as a business, you forget that [00:15:00] maybe the, what's keeping them up at night is how to support that end customer.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So you need to almost direct and go straight to that influencer, right? Who is not gonna buy from you, but is going to be the main person or entity that at the end of the day influences. If your end customer will actually purchase what you're selling. 

Amardeep Parmar: Yeah. And even looking at yourself, right. So obviously part of your role is going to be talking to different companies.

Amardeep Parmar: What have you learned about your own role, like, as you've been in it, in terms of how the persona might be different to what you initially imagined? 

Ina Yulo Stuve: Yeah, exactly. Then I think it's so important to always be, I think just, it's so simple to forget that you have to talk to your customers on a regular basis.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And I think that that's, you know, a big learning because I, I think I talk to my customers often because I'm always you know, reaching out to them where they're at, right? And not expecting them to just come to our own event. So I go out to 3rd party events quite often because again, it's a case of where are they hanging out?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Let's go there. But then a lot of the time [00:16:00] again, it ends up in a networking session or, you know, there's a theme around whatever the event is. We talk about what that theme is and I, it takes me some time to also sometimes forget that that is a huge opportunity for me to actually, and it sometimes comes up in the middle of a casual conversation, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Where they're talking about their challenges, of course, and then I realized this is the perfect time. I'll say, hey, you know what? We just ran this particular marketing campaign. Um, but let's say it wasn't as successful as we thought, and I'm not sure why. And that person will almost be happy to say, Oh, this is why it's because you did this instead of this.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Like me as your target, again, your target persona. I don't care about this as X, you know, that particular thing as much as, as they used to. And that's now insights by the way, when I go into our, you know, our marketing team, we, we meet collectively on a regular basis. I love it that when I come to the table with insights about our customers, I'm able to get it straight from the horse's mouth.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Because we use obviously CRM systems we use, you know, we have a lot of data that helps us [00:17:00] understand which campaigns are best performing, which aren't as performing as well. And we have, again, data and numbers that back that up, but anecdotal feedback almost from the field. Is so important because it has, I think, in my experience, it has totally shifted our direction in many, in many cases, because again, I'm someone who I am more than happy to be told that something that I have done has failed, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Or did not reach its targets. Because what I think about that is that. That just gives me, you know, time and money back. I don't want to keep spending or spending time and money on something that is actually not working. So let me find out early, let me find out fast and then let me shift gears. And that also gives me the data points to actually go back to maybe my senior stakeholders to actually say, Hey, guess what?

Ina Yulo Stuve: We're not doing this anymore because of X, Y, and Z. 

Amardeep Parmar: And I guess one of the interesting things about that is how sticky and stubborn do you be about your persona? Because what you want to do is adapt to feedback and pivot. And if you're [00:18:00] getting different feedback from different people, that's maybe different to what you thought your persona was, that you have to adapt it so you know what you're doing.

Amardeep Parmar: At the same time, it could just be the first 10 people you interview just had the same opinion and that's not actually represented. How do you go about that? How do you think about when you should start making shifts in that persona?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Exactly. And that's, that's why you have to use multiple data sources and multiple channels, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: So there's the anecdotal feedback. And again, like you said, is that, am I getting that feedback by attending one event and talking to 10 people at that one event? Because that's a very non diverse segment, right? Because if you go to an event, then the people who are there are probably very similar to one another.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So we can assume think in a very similar manner. So if I'm capturing anecdotal feedback, it has to be from different sources. It has to be, you know, calling some customers up. Maybe we get a customer on a panel. Maybe we get again, a woman founder might have a different view to a male founder. So there's different sources of anecdotal feedback.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And then again, yeah. Also use the data, right? So as an [00:19:00] example, we might have said there's a particular, um, event that we've been running or a workshop we've been running and my, it was a colleague who actually said, Hey, you know, the content there is just really not performing. We got some feedback from, um, some attendees who said that they really didn't learn much from this particular feedback.

Ina Yulo Stuve: I said, okay, that's interesting though, because we've run this workshop now X number of times, and it's always oversubscribed, right? And oversubscription obviously shows you that there's interest in the topic and not only that we send a survey out after and we get some both quantitative and qualitative feedback that shows us that it's actually outperformed most of the other workshops we're doing. So however, would be interested to hear from those who did not find it valuable as to which areas was not valuable. We're not valuable for them. I want to learn as well. Right? And then that also allows me to say did the particular bit that they brought up Is that reflective?

Ina Yulo Stuve: Maybe in some conversations we've had, can we trace it back to who that person was in terms of like, what was that person's role? Why did they not find it [00:20:00] valuable? Is it because of maybe they're in a later stage and the cost was more for early stage? Then that's on us to say, you're still able to iterate, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: It's that maybe the feedback was because it was a workshop that should have actually been for more early stage founders. That helps me when we do the workshop again, we blatantly say it, the target audience for this, or those who will get the most value from this, are people are founders who are in the early stages of their journey.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Some pre-seed to C,  right? Then that already tells anybody that is C plus or, you know, series a and above. Okay. This is not for me because I'm probably more ahead of in my journey. 

Amardeep Parmar: So  let's say you have found this. Great group of people that are your target persona. Like you said, you're, you're oversubscribed all of the events you're doing.

Amardeep Parmar: How do you foster that? How do you keep them engaged? How do you keep them as part of your community there? 

Ina Yulo Stuve: So I get this question a lot from startup founders is that we want to build a community. How do we build a community and community is such a strong, Um, part, I think, of any company success, but it's also a very vague [00:21:00] term.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Um, what does the community even look like? Is it a tangible thing? Especially in this digital age, right? So many communities can exist completely online, and I'm sure it's the same with you for, for the BAE HQ, right? Is that so many members of your community are listeners. You may not have ever, they might not have ever met you in real life.

Ina Yulo Stuve: You might not have ever had any kind of face to face interaction with them. So how do you foster that? Very simply, there has to be consistency and trust. So you need to have built that credibility that they trust you, that they go to you when they want to educate themselves, when they want to be connected to people or topics that are valuable to them.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And there needs to be consistency again, is that when they come to one, whether that's an event or again, a podcast, like with your podcasts, right? What do you do at the end of it? You say, here's how to contact this person. So you've built that connection. You've made that bridge. You've become that enabler.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And then also you say, tune in next week where we interview X person. That's the call to action. There's a continuation to the conversation. It's not just, [00:22:00] this is such an amazing episode. Hope you loved it. Goodbye. See you never. Right. You, you open yourself up and allow yourself to be, to, to be connected with that person.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And then also give them that follow up. So maybe a concrete example also is, um, pre AWS. Um, I was the global head of FinTech and financial services at a B2B startup called BrightTalk, which has now been bought by TechTarget. And, um, I always think that that was my mini founder's journey. I use that very lightly.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Um, but that's because I, at the time, this was maybe late 2015, early 2016, this cool new thing called FinTech was coming up. And I thought, you know what? I think that this is going to be the next big thing. Um, I think we should start a community on FinTech. Because BrightTalk, um, was a B2B content and demand generation platform.

Ina Yulo Stuve: It still exists. And, um, what it was, was we always said it was like TED Talks for professionals. So professionals would come to BrightTalk to watch webinars and videos to educate themselves. So we were trying to build this [00:23:00] Fintech community and what I had to do was again, completely set the egos aside.

Ina Yulo Stuve: I had to say, we know nothing about Fintech. We are not seen as Fintech experts in any way, shape or form. So how do we attract the audience to this, this content. Right. And what I did realize is that we had a really strong name in financial services, specifically in investment banking and investment management.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So then we got connected by a friend of a friend to someone who was a very big name in FinTech. Took her out to lunch and said, Hey, here's a proposition. We have we have this platform. Which by the time I left, it had 8 million subscribers and I said, you know, we have about 8 million subscribers here and are looking to do a monthly online digital summit for the fintech community.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So 1, do you think it's a good idea? And 2, if it is, will you help us build this? So what she did say was, I think it's an excellent idea because there's definitely a gap. It's such a fast moving industry. And right now we only have annual physical [00:24:00] events like money 2020 and Sibos. So the people in the industry, that's fintech founders.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Um, and you know, the banks actually who want to educate themselves on the new fintech, you know, um, technologies coming out. They only have one time a year, pretty much max two to find out about it. So they have to wait the whole year before they go to this event and get all of that content where she said having something free and online.

Ina Yulo Stuve: ‘Cause those conferences cost a lot of money. She was saying so by having that again, monthly online free, you're regularly updated with FinTech topics. She said, I think it's going to be gold. And then I said, okay, let's do our first online summit, you know, and in January, that was again, I think 2016. And I said, if you could help us in creating it and you partner with us, um, we have you on there as a partner.

Ina Yulo Stuve: We have you, you know, um, um, speaking on a panel. Can you help invite the biggest thought leaders in the game, essentially to come and speak. And could you help us get some sponsors? And if you do, we'll get you a percentage of the sponsorship. Um, so that first event ended up being on digital [00:25:00] banking and we had the head of blockchain at Barclays, um, one of the co founders of Starling and Monzo then called Mondo, um, on that, on that, um, summit.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And I think we ended up with about 2000, 3000 attendees. So that's what, how it started. Right. And then what I also always. You know, encourage founders who are interested in building a community to do is as you are building your own community. You need to in parallel be plugging yourself into existing communities.

Ina Yulo Stuve: So that's the ego bit, right? Is that we're doing this, but guess what? We're not just expecting everyone to suddenly come to us. We need to be present at Sibos at money 2020. So I was like properly traveling the world at the time. My worst week was when I did 10 days of, my 2020 in Vegas, San Francisco for one evening, um, Manila for a Hindu for a few nights, then Hong Kong Elevate, where I would speak, um, moderating a panel and back to London.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And that was like my life for a while. But again, it's because we had to be present in these other, within these [00:26:00] other communities that already had a name and credibility. And that helped us then go into those and bring them back to our own community. And that's what again, it's running it in parallel.

Ina Yulo Stuve: But again, what I always tell startups is you need to give something in return because people are not going to give you their time, their attention, their money, if they don't think that you have something unique to you again, our unique selling point at the time was again, 8 million subscribers who want to hear more about what you're doing, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: So that's what we gave them. We gave them that platform. And in return, they gave us the knowledge, the connections, the thought leadership. Um, and by the time I left Brighttalk, that community for FinTech was at 400, 000 subscribers. So, you know, community building is something that I see. So much value in, but it has to be done right.

Ina Yulo Stuve: And it has to be done in a very strategic way. That still is, I think also very, um, very authentic. 

Amardeep Parmar: I completely agree to that. I think one of the things I see a lot is people will talk about building a community, but what they're trying to do is just sell to them. And it's like, that's people aren't going to buy [00:27:00] it.

Amardeep Parmar: Join the community just to be sold to you, right? You've got to, I say, give them value where they're part of it. And sometimes what happens, for example, is where a good community, you don't even really know what the business does sometimes. Like, you're the, you're like, Oh, I trust these guys. I like these guys.

Amardeep Parmar: Oh, actually, I do need that. Right. And it's that soft approach, but it can, especially if you've got, say, B2B SaaS or something like that, where it's a big decision. If you've got more and more data, like these people are helping these people understand the problem, they're really knowledgeable in this area.

Amardeep Parmar: They're way more likely to convert later on down the line. But we're gonna have to move to the quickfire questions now. So thank you so much for everything you've shared so far. So first one is who are three British Asians that you'd love to spotlight that you think are doing incredible work? 

Ina Yulo Stuve: So I would say the three would be, uh, one of our AWS customers, Angie Ma.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Um, she is one of the founders of, um, an AI startup, B2B SaaS called Faculty. Um, Siddhi Mittal, who I know has been on your [00:28:00] podcast, and I know we also saw each other at, at SIFTED, but I think she's amazing. So one of the founders of yhangry. And why I think she's amazing is pretty much because every time I see her, I'm just energized, right?

Ina Yulo Stuve: She has so much passion for what she's doing. She completely pivoted her career. And I think that again, you can see that she has such a good head on her shoulders. And she is someone who completely gets her target customer. And she's had to. She's also someone who has had to look into target customer, as in the person who is, um, so it's yhangry is a private chef for higher company is the person who wants to hire a private chef.

Ina Yulo Stuve: But very recently, she also looked into another target customer, which is the actual chef community that she's building. How do we better serve that chef community? So I love that. Um, and third is not in the tech startup space, but Melissa Helmsley. So some of you might know her as, um, a food influencer. Um, she is very big on plant based cooking.

Ina Yulo Stuve: Um, but she also makes a lot of meaty dishes because she's half [00:29:00] Filipino. And if anyone knows Filipinos like me, we need our meat. Um, and I, I, I love it because I think she presents her food in a very, um, eaccessible way. And I think that because of her platform, she has properly used it to actually, um, introduce Filipino cooking, um, to, to many people.

Ina Yulo Stuve: She has her mom on her show sometimes. She has videos with her mom cooking with her, which I absolutely love. So it would be those three.

Amardeep Parmar: Perfect. So if people want to find out more about you, more about what you're up to. Where should we send them? 

Ina Yulo Stuve: Um, so you can, um, find me on LinkedIn. Um, it's Ina Yulo Stuve, also on Instagram under Inayulo.

Ina Yulo Stuve: I also have, speaking of food, a food Instagram, which is what I created purely because I didn't want to bug everybody on my personal Instagram with all of my food posts. So that's forever_munching on Instagram. 

Amardeep Parmar: Is there anything that the audience can help you with? 

Ina Yulo Stuve: Yeah, so I mean, again, as my role at AWS, I'm always on the lookout for, you know, founders, operators, investors who want to take [00:30:00] part and get involved with our AWS startups community.

Ina Yulo Stuve: There's so many things that we do, whether that's creating creating new report where we might need some quotes and some insights

Ina Yulo Stuve:  We run a bunch of events, both in person and online. We have our biggest event of the year in 2024 coming up, which is the AWS Summit London. That's on April 24th. So again, you know, speaking opportunities. We've got loads of them. Please reach out to me. And also again, if you just want to understand how AWS might be able to support your startup.

Ina Yulo Stuve: We are a strategic business partner and technical provider for startups all over the world. So we'd be more than happy to help and, you know, talk to you more about the different programs we have to support startups. 

Amardeep Parmar: Awesome. So thanks so much for today. It's been really insightful. Have you got any final words to the audience?

Ina Yulo Stuve: I guess final words is just thank you for listening. I hope that this was helpful. And again, if you have, you know, any more questions or want to reach out, um, please, please go ahead and do that. And also, I think that I'm just so happy that there are platforms like this that exists. [00:31:00] And I'm really, really happy that the community you're building is one that is so engaged.

Ina Yulo Stuve: We saw that in person at Sifted, um, and really excited to see what you guys do moving forward.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello, hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening, it means a huge amount to us. And we don't think you realize how important you are. Because if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you leave us a 5 star review, it makes a world of difference. And if you believe in what we're trying to do here, to inspire, connect and guide the next generation British Asians, if you do those things, you can help us achieve that mission.

Amardeep Parmar: And you can help us make a bigger impact. And by doing that, it means we can get bigger guests. We can host more events. We can do more for the community. So you can play a huge part. So thank you so much for supporting us.

‍