Who we are

I’m Tom Tessmer, and I’ve spent the last 20 years preparing for AIRAID…but only recently realized it. 

I’ve had roles inside the CPG, broker, agency and consulting worlds.

I’ve always been fascinated with improving HOW work gets done, not just WHAT work gets done.

BEING A KIND CONTRARIAN

This means I’ve spent most of my life asking uncomfortable questions and challenging the status quo. It turns out this is a great way to find truth and really understand why things are the way they are.

I’ve also owned and operated a consultancy that has helped 300 companies improve their customer experience or employee experience.

I view these as two of the foundational elements to any healthy business:

  • The ability to turn high-potential prospects into high-value customers.

  • The ability to improve coworker compatibility through better professional connection.

AIRAID ADDRESSES A THIRD FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENT: 

Having extraordinary internal operations 

The timing of this perfectly aligns with all the exciting (and scary) changes being enabled by advances in artificial intelligence and low-code/no-code automation tools.

From the beginning, my consultancy applied learning from every project to make incremental improvements to our internal operational experience. 

Over time, this continuous process has compounded to have an extraordinary impact on quality and efficiency.

We’ve learned that few companies operate the way that we do. 

Most have little or no repeatable process, lots of isolated effort, and “fragile” tools.  They are also very vulnerable to the departure of key employees.

If your business feels like it is in a state of perpetual chaos, trust me…you’re not alone.

AIRAID provides a three-phase approach to modernize how CPG offices operate:

  1. Invest in intense research, development and experimentation:  Evaluate the first principles of process. Learn the true potential and limitations of new technology in pursuit of finding practical applications.

  2. Build a comprehensive toolkit:  Focus on incrementally adding tools to workflows designed around generalized core components, our specialized “blackbox IP” and customized foundational client knowledge.

  3. Provide ongoing operator support:   Prepare clients for significant changes in roles and responsibilities. As many tasks become commoditized, more can be offloaded to an external human-in-the-loop while others will become even more specialized, needing an expert-in-the-loop.

What we are about

Businesses need to be built on things that are unlikely to change, and not depend on predicting when and how things will change.  

The new AI era has made this even more important, as fewer things are unchanging.

So, we are building our business on unchanging foundational principles that will guide how we operate and evolve through this chaos.

If you’re a good fit, these should provide a sense of stability and confidence that we’re aligned on where we’re going and how we plan to get there…even if the path, exact destination or arrival time are unknown.

How we operate:

  • We’re working to build the best operating system and tools prepared to incorporate all the unpredictable capabilities AI will gain in the future.

  • We believe the best tools have powerful hidden sophistication, but are easy for anyone to learn to use.

  • In an environment of unknowns, asking the questions no one else is will lead to acquiring the answers no one else has.

  • The best approach to learning and creating value is to not rush the discovery process. Taking time for thorough exploration is essential to understand and realize the full potential of new capabiltiies.

  • Cost-effective operation needs to recognize and separate specialized abilities from commoditized abilities. This needs to be applied to both people and process

  • Unpredictable advancements will make tools obsolete over time. Others will need to have regular upgrades remain relevant in an maturing market. This is not a set-and-forget environment.

  • Our toolkit should be viewed as a marketplace that welcomes any tools that meet our user experience and quality standards.

    Our goal is to collect the world’s greatest CPG tools, and that doesn’t mean we need to build them ourselves.

Let’s Build!

Interested in how we’re modernizing operations? Let’s chat!